The Next Season
by Hayha
Summary: Please review it to help me make it better! Think of this being the next season of Ringer. This story will resolve Ringer. It isn't primarily a romance. It's about the drama, pains and decisions of the primary characters with some classic TV fun. I really need your reviews! I will be doing a second draft and I need to know what works and what doesn't.
1. To Tell The Truth

To Tell the Truth

Bridget lay under Bodaway Macawi's body soaked in sweat the gun still in her hand. Her face felt like it was burning. Was he dead? Was he really dead? Was that nightmare finally over?

After what seemed like an eternity of Macawi's blood drip on her, the police and Agent Machado burst in. "It's alright, it's alright," he said, helping her up.

Bridget's first thought was of Juliet, but Machado said Juliet was with Andrew in the Hamptons. That didn't make sense. She knew she heard a scream.

She knew she had said something to Machado but had no idea what it was. Her ears were ringing from the gunfire and her mind was a blur. She tried to understand what was going on but it was just too much all at once. The only thing she could retain in her mind was when of the cops took the gun and walked with it to the back and called on his radio.

Bridget sat, her heart racing, feeling dazed and confused for she had no idea how long before pulled herself together enough to wash up and change into something that wasn't covered in Mackawi's blood. Oddly it made her feel better.

For some reason, Solomon was there when she returned from freshening up. He showed her a video of Siobhan being alive after Bridget thought she had committed suicide. For seven months she had taken her sister's husband but she thought she wasn't committing adultery with a married man because Siobhan was dead. Somehow adultery didn't seem like her worst problem though.

The police officer returned, took her arm and handcuffed her. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

She just stood there numbly, too astonished even to answer. She could feel her lips trembling.

Machado stepped in. "Mrs. Martin, don't say anything until Andrew gets you a lawyer."

Bridget looked around, sadly. "I don't think he's going to help."

Machado turned to the police. "What are you even charging her with?"

The cop held up the gun. "Violation of the Sullivan Law will do for now. This gun isn't licensed to you, is it?"

Bridget shook her head as the police walked her down the fourteen flights of stairs and into a squad car, wondering what else was going to unravel in her life now.

As the police drove her away from the Park Avenue apartment that had been her home she could feel herself slipping away from everyone she loved in the world. At first she felt utterly hopeless but then she remembered what she had learned in NA. She had surrendered her life to her higher power. In the back of the police car she quietly repeated over and over that prayer that had meant so much to her.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

She could not change how Andrew and Juliet felt about her lies. She could not undo the lies. All she could do is tell the truth now.

She felt the hand cuffs that shackled her wrists and in her mind they became the set of rosary beads from her childhood. She said prayers she had thought she had long forgotten. She crossed herself as well as she could and said the Apostle's Creed, one Our Father, three Hail Marys and one Glory Be. When the car stopped at the station and as they took her out, she said the Hail the Holy Queen.

Hail Holy Queen,

Mother of mercy,

Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.

To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping

In this valley of tears.

Turn then, most gracious advocate,

Thine eyes of mercy towards us.

And after this, our exile,

Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

O clement O loving O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pray for us oh holy mother of God.

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

She had learned in NA that everything passed, be it the good times or the bad. This would pass. She didn't know when or how but she knew she had to trust in her Higher power, the God she had known when she was a little girl and was just beginning to know again now.

She was fingerprinted and had her mug shot taken. It wasn't the first time but she had thought she'd never have it happen again. She tried to relax and to smile as she told herself that she hadn't done anything wrong.

They led her into an interrogation room and sat her down in behind a metal desk, still leaving her handcuffed. She guessed they were trying to make her feel like she was helpless and completely under their control. They failed. Her thoughts were free. She said the rosary.

Detective Robert Goren knew well that exhaustion worked like a legal form of torture. He kept her waiting and waiting. He watched her through the one way glass and had people go in and out until it looked like she would crash in exhaustion right there in the interrogation room. That was the moment to strike. When he could see her begin to panic, she would break and the truth would slip out. He spent the time familiarizing himself with the case files. He'd just been assigned the case. They called him in because it was too high profile for Towers to muff up any more.

He kept her waiting in the interrogation room for over an hour, waiting for her to begin squirming but she didn't squirm. As a former alter boy he new someone who was praying. He could even tell by how her lips moved what prayers she was saying. All she asked his minions for was a chance to go to the bathroom. Still not all was lost. Bladder bust was another form of legal torture.

She had lost count of her prayers by the time a fat, grey haired detective in a suit jacket with a blue dress shirt sat opposite her as others crowded around. He had a grizzled beard and an exhausted look. Another rumpled suit with a gold shield followed. A uniformed officer focused a camcorder on her. The fat one talked first. "I am Detective Goren. This is Captain Hannah. It's the 18th of April, 2012 and it's about fifteen minutes after Midnight. State your name for the record," he said.

"Couldn't I go to the bathroom first?"

He leaned over her. "No."

"Bridget Kelley."

Captain Hannah raised an eyebrow. "That's not the name on your ID."

"No. I am Bridget Kelley. The ID is for my twin sister, Siobhan Martin."

Goren stepped outside. A fingerprint technician was standing there about to know, clutching the computer's identification scan of her fingerprints. He grabbed the sheet and went back inside.

"Well," Goren said, sitting on the desk, swinging his shoes right under her face to invade comfort zone. "It seems we have caught the big fish. We have the hard evidence. You may as well confess."

"To what?"

"The murder of John Delario." He waved and a uniformed officer brought in a laptop computer. "You didn't count on that storage facility having more cameras in storage facilities than Macy's."

Hannah played footage from a jerky night vision security camera for her. She watched in horror as the man she thought was her sponsor fought with Gemma Butler and then shot her to death. Minutes later, her face drove up. She appeared to be in a Mexican Standoff with Gemma's killer until she talked him out of his gun and killed him.

Bridget watched in astonishment. "Siobhan shot Charles Young?"

"Charles Young wasn't his real name."

"I knew him as Charles Young. He pretended to be my sponsor in NA and told me he was a cop." She thought for a minute. "That wasn't me. It was my twin sister Siobhan. I was in Penn Station with Andrew Martin and two police detectives." She tried to remember. "I forgot the woman's name but the man was bald and his name was Towers." She looked at the frozen picture of her and followed a hunch. "Do you have any other cameras of this?"

"Plenty. Just pull up files C01 through C11."

She pushed Goren's foot out of the way and took the computer. She followed a hunch. It wasn't easy to control the computer mouse in handcuffs but she managed and looked through the different camera views of Siobhan. She stopped the camera at one, froze the screen and turned the notebook around to the detective. "There. Do you see that?"

"See what?"

Bridget pointed using both hands. "Men! That's a bump and a big one. "

"A bump?"

"A baby bump. Siobhan is pregnant. Look at that."

"It's just the angle and what you were wearing."

"Think," Bridget said. "Siobhan was having an affair with Henry Butler, Gemma's husband. It looks like she hired this Charles Young to kill Gemma and make it look like someone had kidnapped Gemma for ransom and killed her. Henry Butler must be in on it. Why otherwise would he 'accidentally' screw up the ransom pay-off? So Siobhan silenced him." She shook her head. "What a set of cold bastards."

And a stupid set, Goren thought. How could they miss something so obvious as all the security cameras at a storage facility? EVERY storage facility always boasts of all their cameras to the customers.

Goren had always prided himself as an amateur profiler. They had brought him into the case because it had made no sense for a woman on the run from a mob killer to murder people involved with her sister. He compared the notes in the case files on Gemma's kidnapping and Delario's murder. Suddenly everything made perfect sense. He walked around her and snaked his head around almost into her lap. "How long had you masqueraded as your sister?"

"Since mid September. Can I go potty now?"

"How … did you two work it out as a deal?"

"Siobhan pretended to have committed suicide, knowing that I was on the run from Macawi and that I would jump at the chance to escape him by becoming someone else. I thought she really was dead until today."

"Can you prove it's been that long?"

She thought for a moment. "I think I can prove … definitely since the first of November. I had a head and neck MRI after a concussion. Her fillings are different." She thought some more. "No, earlier. I called my sponsor in Wyoming on Siobhan's cell and it was on the bill. That must have been late September."

Hannah leaned forward. "And Oksana Segalovich?"

She thought, trying to remember. It was difficult at that hour. "I've heard that name. I really could think better if you'd let me use the bathroom."

"Segalovich was a maid at the Soho Diamond. She said you paid her thousands of dollars to change her mind about her letting Henry Butler into Tyler Barret's hotel room?"

"I wouldn't pay five cents to save Henry Butler from Freddy Kruger. He's a slime ball who cheated on my friend Gemma."

Hannah took the notebook from Bridget and pulled up a different directory of video files. "This is from a gas station's security cameras." This security video was date stamped the third of April at 2:00 in the afternoon. It showed someone who looked rather like Bridget get out of a cab and go to a doorway.

Bridget shrugged. "So?"

"This is Oksana's apartment. You've never been there?"

"Except for you and Detective Towers I never even heard of her."

He skipped the footage ahead, feeling stupid. All of Towers's work just fell right apart as he was questioning her. He thought about playing the "One Catholic to another, confess your sins to find forgiveness" line but that didn't seem worth the bother either. All that time, all that talk of identical twins and Towers never even once considered checking her fingerprints. He had plenty of opportunities. "So this isn't you exiting?"

Bridget looked at the date stamp. Half past two. "No. At the moment Andrew's crazy ex wife Catherine was trying to murder me. Ask Andrew and Juliet. Or ask Agent Machado of the FBI. Or just pull up the arrest report on Catherine Martin." She took the laptop again and slowly advanced through the footage, pausing it as Siobhan turned to hail a cab. "You're the detectives. What's wrong with this picture?"

Hannah nodded, seeing it but Goren didn't get it. "Tell me."

"I am a size five."

That just elicited a blank stare.

"I am 34-23-34. Siobhan is as big as a whale under that coat. See how she has that pregnant waddle and is leaning back to take the weight of the baby. She looks very overdue. She's probably had the baby already."

He wanted a tricky answer to get inside her head. He wanted to say that the pregnant waddle could be acting and the belly could be a pillow. But he knew it wasn't even worth the bother. He just shook his head in depressed frustration. What else had Towers missed?

Hannah put down the autopsy report file folder. "Segalovich was poisoned. At first we thought it was a heart attack but the autopsy showed that she'd been poisoned by inhaling strychnine mixed with cocaine."

Bridget wrinkled her nose, thinking distastefully of the lines she'd snorted. "Strychnine in cocaine?"

"It's actually sort of clever. Strychnine is often used to cut cocaine. She probably thought we would just think it was an accident."

Bridget nodded. "It makes sense. She killed twice before for Henry Butler. She'd kill again to protect that asshole."

"But you did kill Macawi?"

"He was trying to kill me."

"Where did you get the gun?"

"Solomon Vessida. He gave it to me when I told him that Macawi was in town and coming for me."

"And how did you know that?"

"Detective Kemper from Wyoming came to me after he escaped prison and tried to blackmail me for money. Then I saw on TV tonight that he had been murdered. That meant Macawi was here."

Hannah and Goren stepped outside and stepped down the hall. Goren got a cup of coffee and sipped it as he compared dates between the Segolovich murder and the Catherine Martin case file on a computer. "I believe her, Captain. She has no motive for Segolovich and those are both airtight alibis. And everything she says has made more logical sense than anything Towers ever said about the case."

Captain Hannah shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. The surveillance video was in the file and was part of their insurance claim against damages caused by two people bleeding to death at their storage location. The physical evidence from the distance of the powder burns and the trajectory of the bullet wound both prove that it wasn't suicide. Why didn't Tower ever mention it in his report?"

Goren paused, sipping his coffee. It tasted terrible but he kept on drinking it anyway. "Captain, I see three possibilities. DeLario was ex-NYPD. Someone downtown didn't want the scandal of an ex-cop being part of a murder and kidnapping so they said he killed himself. Towers is on the take from someone, perhaps Siobhan Martin or Henry Butler. Or, Towers is a complete idiot."

Hannah poured himself a drink of water from the cooler. "A rock isn't that stupid. Just watch the surveillance video. That leaves us with a bad cop or downtown's toady. Either way, I am transferring Towers to parking detail and talking to Internal Affairs. So what do you suggest we do about DeLario?"

Goren shrugged. "DeLario is dead. We can't make him pay. But we can get a warrant for murder on Siobhan Martin for killing him."

"And if Downtown really does want DeLario's name kept out of it?"

"Then we turn DeLario into a heroic undercover cop on a deep mission to infiltrate a murder for hire gang but just as he was rescuing an intended victim he was tragically killed in the line of duty." Goren put his hand over his heart and then made a mock salute. "Can't you see Old Man Kelly making the speech as the bagpipes play for that asshole?"

Hannah thought. He definitely could. "But it's all bullshit. DeLario shot the bitch. The evidence is clear."

Goren shrugged. "Evidence comes, evidence goes. The important thing is that Siobhan Martin is guilty of murder on DeLario and Segolavich as well as kidnapping and felony murder on Butler. We make any of those stick and it's mandatory life in prison."

Hannah hated to do it but he had to agree with Goren. "I'm going to cut Bridget Kelly loose."

"What about the other charges? The gun is owned by Solomon. He does have a license for it but she doesn't."

Hannah shook his head. "Maybe we can make it stick legally but the NRA will make her the poster girl to have the Sullivan law overturned. See the poor, defenseless pretty young woman kills the evil mobster in self defense in her own home and the police put her in jail."

"That leaves earlier given false statements to a police officer about her identity and using false identification."

"Again, probably far more trouble than its worth and I have a feeling we can use her. If nothing else she's a key witness in the Catherine Martin case and we can use her testimony to yank Solomon Vessida's firearms license."

"What's next?"

Hannah wadded up and threw away his empty water cup. "Henry Butler is at the center of four murders. We have the hotel surveillance tapes and Segolovich's signed statement and now we have ID'd Martin as Segolovich's killer. Time for you to do the job Towers should have done and track down Siobhan Martin. Get some sleep but start tomorrow with getting the medallion and GPS information on the cab that went to Segolovich."

Goren saluted and left. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

Hannah went back inside the interrogation room. "You can go for now but don't leave town."

Bridget shrugged. "Like I had any place to go and any money to go there."


	2. I Was Happy Once

I Was Happy Once

Andrew and Juliet had just arrived at their beach house at the other end of Long Island in East Hampton after a two hour long drive when his mobile phone rang. He thought it would be his phony Siobhan, he figured, come to beg for her place in his bed. He would enjoy crushing her, he thought. He took the phone out of his jacket. The caller's ID had been blocked. Interesting. "Hello."

A man's voice answered, a heavy man with a touch of a Greek accent. "Andrew Martin?"

"Yes …" What was her game now?

"I'm detective Stavros of the New York Police Department."

He felt a sinking feeling. She'd killed herself like her sister. She'd jumped off the balcony or done something equally hideous. He sighed. "What happened?"

"It's complicated. Ah where are you?"

"The Hamptons. We just got here." Andrew could hear police radios hissing in the background. He swallowed. It was hard to say it but he had to ask. "My wife?"

"She isn't injured. But we really need to have you return to your apartment to answer some questions."

"What's so important? My daughter is exhausted."

"There's been a homicide."

Andrew's eyes went wide. "A HOMICIDE?"

Juliet half stirred from where she had sacked out on the couch.

"Your wife was the one holding the still smoking gun."

He looked at Juliet, still more asleep than awake. She'd fallen asleep in exhaustion. "What, Daddy?"

"We'll be there as soon as we can." Andrew hung up and took Juliet's hand. "I'm sorry, Juliet but we have to turn around and go back."

"Why?"

"It's the police."

She managed to stumble off the couch. "Police, crazies, shootings, police, when will our life ever be normal?"

Andrew sped the way back. In an hour and a half he was parked outside their apartment on 626 Park Avenue. Police were all over. A round faced young woman with a NYPD badge was casually photographing the carnage around the front lobby desk. Andrew turned Juliet's head away as he saw them zipping up a body bag with Kenny the doorman in it. "Elevators are out," the woman idly said. They took the stairs the long fourteen stairs up. His knee hurt and he was more than a little winded by the time he made it to the top.

Upstairs, the police were everywhere. The big picture of Siobhan had been slashed and sprayed with blood. Bodaway Macawi's skull had been blown open and his blood had drained out all over their lovely hardwood floor. Juliet screamed at the sight and threw up, sobbing loudly. Andrew took her to the toilet and held her as she threw up again and again.

When Juliet stopped shaking, Andrew left her in the bathroom. The detective who seemed to be leading the operation was a hefty man who was perhaps 50, with a big nose, thick curly dark hair and a cheap grey suit jacket that opened to an ugly blue tie and a black holster with a large gun. He cracked a grin that was as wide as his chubby cheeks. "You're going to have to strip, sand and redo the floors, get those walls and that ceiling redone."

"Ceiling," Andrew asks, shocked.

He idly points up. Brain and blood were sprayed out in a big, red plume on their lovely ceiling. "A .40 to the head will do that." He pulled out his card and handed it to Andrew. He was Detective First class Yiorgos Stavros.

"What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us." They turned the body over, showing the gaping entrance wound in his forehead. "Do you recognize him?"

Andrew felt pale. He could feel himself trembling as he gasped for air, desperately trying to hold down the gas station hamburger he'd choked down on the way. He sat down. Someone put a glass of water in his hand.

"You know him?"

Andrew shook his head.

"Your first stiff?"

He looked up at the detective. "I'm from Wales. We don't line our streets with corpses like you do in America."

"His name was Bodaway Macawi. He was from Wyoming. Do you know the name?"

Andrew searched his mind. Was that the name Bridget mentioned earlier, the one she said she was running from? He hadn't really listened. He had been so angry – one lie after another until he didn't know who was telling the truth about anything. He shook his head. Even if he did know he didn't want to know anything about it.

A uniformed officer handed Stavros a tablet computer. He flipped through it. "Well, this Macawi seems to have had quite a record. Plus the FBI have two outstanding homicide investigations on him."

"Homicide?"

"Yes. A stripper in a bar named Shaylene Briggs and a computer science professor named Malcolm Ward. Plus other little choice items like narcotics trafficking, kidnapping and receiving stolen property."

He squinted. "Malcolm Ward?"

"Oh, so someone you do know?"

"He was our network administrator for a while at my firm."

"Did your wife know him?

"She introduced us."

"Did you know he had a record for possession of narcotics?"

"I knew he had problems but we thought they were long in the past."

Stavros paced around Macawi's body, tapping the links on Macawi's file. "What would a New York socialite married to a multi-millionare have to do with a low down hoodlum and a professor with a drug record?"

Andrew didn't answer. There were a lot of things about Siobhan he was only now learning. His mind spun. He was exhausted and in utter emotional shock. His mind had reeled from one crisis to another. Had he really been sleeping with someone else thinking she was his wife for seven months? Could it all really be true? He would have thought he would have known his own wife. But seven months ago is when their marriage began to turn around. Marriage? If that was Bridget and not Siobhan then he had been a widower for seven months and bedding a total stranger without even knowing it. If it weren't then this was another sick Siobhan joke and he had been sleeping with a woman who gleefully was cheating behind his back with Henry Butler.

He had been happy once. It had been just this morning. He had been married to a wonderful woman and was madly in love with her then. How had his entire world turned up side down so quickly?

One thing was sure. The woman he had been sleeping with for the last seven months had lied mercilessly and could not be trusted. He stood and checked on Juliet. She seemed calmer. He grabbed a duffel bag and put several days worth of clothes for the both of them in it.

While Andrew packed, Stavros went through the full file on Macawi he downloaded from the FBI. One person mentioned caught his eye when he pulled up the referenced details, the chief witness against Macawi.

With the duffel slung over his shoulder Andrew led Juliet to the stairs. "We will be at the Soho Diamond."

"One last thing before you go, Mr. Martin." Stavros held up the data tablet with a picture of Bridget's police booking picture from Wyoming. "Did you know this woman?"


	3. This Means War

This Means War

Agent Machado had been wonderful, Bridget thought as he was driving her in his rental car to his hotel room to spend the night. He had waited throughout the interrogation and even waited outside Henry Butler's while she went in and confronted him. It was a lot easier to confront that weasel when she knew an armed FBI agent was outside in case he tried to turn her into the next victim.

She thought long and deep about what Henry had said. Siobhan wanted her dead because of her involvement with Sean's fatal accident. Bridget knew she couldn't change the past but she would have given her life so that it would be her that died and not Sean. It was an accident.

No, the war between the two of them had started years before that. They looked identical enough to even fool their own parents if they wanted but there was always a difference between them. Siobhan was always the controlling one. Nothing was ever her fault. She had to be at the center of every decision and always the center of attention.

Not that it had been difficult to fool their parents. They were always two sheets to the wind. She thought back to the frozen winter day that she returned home from Junior High and found her mother in the bathtub with her wrists slit and her hair cut off. It had not been until she had found her own bottom in the private Hell of her own addictions that she had understood the hopelessness and the self-loathing of that addiction.

Something had died in each of them that day as well. It was not long after that when Bridget started sneaking a glass of Dad's whiskey to be able to sleep at night but after that day God died inside Siobhan.

It was two views of the same addiction, Bridget knew. Her addiction had been an actively drugged one. Siobhan's was a dry one, the inner fears and self will run riot.

Bridget now knew and accepted that the war between her and Siobhan was to the death. Only one of them would survive. She rubbed her stomach. She owed it to herself and the bean she thought was inside her to be the survivor. She knew she owed it to Andrew and Juliet too even though they didn't know it.

Machado was tired and concentrated on the driving. Too many years of good FBI discipline and it would not look good for his future prospects at the bureau if he crashed his rental car. He knew he should be royally pissed at Bridget for having fooled him for seven months by pretending to be Siobhan. But to be angry at someone you have to care. He didn't. She was a means to an end, and with Macawi's death that end had been achieved. He really wanted to be angry but the thing that upset him the most was that she cancelled Macawi's ticket just before he had the chance. He'd wanted to blow him away for killing Shaylene and their baby and she made him miss it by an instant.

He would be professional and nice, until he got on the plane. After that, there was no reason to even stay in communication. Whether she sank back into drugs or prospered she wasn't part of his life.

He should have fingerprinted her, as he reflected on it. He could just have had her look at a number of glossy photographs and then fingerprinted them after. He would remember that if he ever had a similar case.

Machado drove them to the Hampton Inn on 35th Street. He had reserved the room there because it was a cheap place on the Government Service Administration schedule for New York. Siobhan knew it wasn't the Soho Diamond by any stretch of the imagination. There was construction going on in the lobby and it was filled with paint buckets and bags of trash but at almost 4:00 in the morning she didn't care.

The room was small and even though the entire hotel was supposed to be non-smoking it reeked of cigarettes. But they were both so tired it made no difference. "You can take the bed," Machado said. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"No," Bridget said. "Not after everything you've done for me. Besides I have slept in far worse places than a hotel room floor." She grabbed the spare blankets and pillows and made a small nest for herself by the window.

Machado didn't ask twice. All he wanted was to get a decent night's sleep. The floor was good enough for her and the bed had to be better than that filthy carpet.

They had both desperately wanted to sleep longer but the traffic noise woke them by 9:30. Bridget was up first. She took a quick shower and dressed in the bathroom before Machado was finished shaving.

Machado took a long look at her, now with her hair down simply and her face without her makeup. "You look like you now."

"What?"

"Those months where you hid as Siobhan. You were hidden under paint. Now you look like the Bridget I knew again."

She thought about it for a moment. Perhaps it was an insult. Perhaps it was appropriate. No more lies. Her face wouldn't be disguised as another. But she wasn't that Bridget either. She honestly felt she was a better person than the one who fled Wyoming and would live to prove it.

"There's a free breakfast downstairs," Machado said through the closed bathroom door as he quickly showered down. "I've got an afternoon flight back home and a lot of work to do." He didn't look forward to the tongue lashing his boss would give him but seeing Macawi with his head blown off made it well worth it. "What are your plans now?"

Bridget thought. "I really don't know. I have been Siobhan for so long I haven't thought like that. Get a job I guess but first I will need to get my own identity back. The police confiscated Siobhan's ID and I don't have my social security card or driver's license from Wyoming any more."

He emerged from the shower, in the same rumpled cheap suit as last night. "I have time to fix that much. Your ID is at the FBI field office here and now the Macawi case has officially been closed I can get it for you." Closed, he thought. A body on an autopsy room slab, like the one Shaylene Briggs was on. It was all the closure he could get but he knew it would hurt for the rest of his life. Macawi had snuffed out two precious lives. Taking his only life would never make it even.

The hotel worker over the free breakfast acted as if his act of working there was a great imposition. Siobhan would have been outraged. Bridget was more concerned with holding down the dry toast on her plate.

The FBI headquarters was on Federal Plaza. It was ringed with anti car bomb posts that looked a bit too much tank traps from some old war movie. The security in the lobby was tighter than an airport. Bridget wondered who was being protected from whom but she looked straight ahead and kept her silence.

They took the elevator up to the 23rd floor. She waited in a crowded lobby as Machado went back. She quietly read the ten most wanted list posters, comparing them to Siobhan and Henry. A pedophile shutterbug outranked two kidnappings and a murderer. That beat an armed robber who killed just one armed guard – the guard at least had a chance when poor Gemma had none. That trumped two murders and a prison escape but how two murders outranked the next one down who blew up his wife and two children she had no idea. The next one down ran a Ponzi scheme and defrauded investors of millions before fleeing the country. If Andrew had just been just a little more successful he could have ended up on the ten most wanted list too.

Machado came out with her pack and handed it to her. "I've got to hurry to make my flight," he said as he hustled on out and squeezed his way into a packed elevator. That was the end of that. She had used him. He had used her. She was alive. Macawi was dead. Both of them got what they wanted. She rode the next elevator down and then the J subway train two stops down to Martin Charles.

She felt like the alien invader as she rode the familiar elevator up. Still, she owed it to them and she owed it to herself. She felt the business cards she collected last night at the police precinct and looked at the stoned looking face on her driver's license. That had been her once. She would spend many years living it down.

Somehow she managed to make herself walk to the receptionist's desk. "I need to see Andrew."

The receptionist's eyebrow flashed as she dialed an extension that didn't look like Andrew's. "Siobhan Martin is here."

A few moments later, Tim Arbogast walked out of his office. "Security is coming to throw you out. I am amazed at your nerve."

She held out to him her ID. "I am not Siobhan Martin. I am her sister Bridget. And I have important information. Information about Gemma's murder."

"You can buy that ID for $100 in Time Square. Another cheap trick, Siobhan."

A renta-cop came up the elevator. After everything that had happened she didn't fear them. She handed Tim the business cards of Agent Machado, detective Goren and Captain Hannah. "Call them to verify that everything I am saying is true. But listen to me first and promise you'll tell Andrew."

He looked at the business cards. They looked real. Either it was an elaborate trick or perhaps it was true. He held the driver's license up to the light. It had a buffalo and a cowboy on it but it also had a holographic seal repeating Wyoming across the front. "Come to my office."

She followed him and the rental cop followed her.

Tim pulled a currency verification pen out of his desk and used it to scan the driver's license. It had her name, date of birth and a ghostly image of her that were only visible under ultra violet light. If it was a fake, it was a darn good one. "Alright, I am listening."

"Since the middle of September I had been living as Siobhan. I thought she had killed herself but Siobhan is alive. She is here in New York and she is crazy."

"Tell me something I care about. Tell me something I don't already know."

"She had Gemma murdered."

"WHAT!"

"The police have surveillance video of her shooting the man who shot Gemma. They have issued a warrant for her arrest for murder."

He sat, stunned. His lips trembled. "I thought it was Henry."

She thought back in horror to what she saw on Goren's notebook. "I saw the video. I saw Gemma fight to save her life and then get shot to death. I saw Siobhan drive up and shoot the man who shot Gemma."

His head shook back and forth. "Siobhan had Gemma killed?"

"I think Siobhan wanted to clean up the loose end between her and faking the kidnapping so she could murder Gemma. That way she'd have Henry all to herself. Obviously she and Henry planned for Henry to give the kidnapper the excuse to kill Gemma by his "accidentally" fouling up us giving Gemma's kidnappers the ransom money."

"If Siobhan and Henry wanted money, why didn't they just call me for the ransom?"

She shook her head. "They must really have hated Gemma, even more than they wanted your money. How much do you think they paid her killer? More than the both of us would pay to get her back."

She looked at the broken man hunched over the desk. "Gemma was your daughter but she was also my best friend." She sat down. It wasn't quite polite but she was so tired.

"And Henry?"

"The police have the hotel security video of Henry going into Tyler Barret's room. They also have video of her killing this woman Olga or something like that who let Henry go into the room of Tyler Barrett."

"How did you find all this out?"

She shrugged. "I got arrested last night. Those cops showed me the evidence to try to make me confess to the murders but after I proved to them it was Siobhan and not me that did it they let me go. I had them write the police case numbers on the back of their cards. But there's more, information you have to promise to tell Andrew."

"Alright."

"She's pregnant and almost due. The last murder was on the third, less than two weeks ago. She was really big." She thought back to how Andrew lit up when he thought she was pregnant and what a doting father he had always been for Juliet. "He loves children. She will use that as a weapon against him."

"So why are you bothering to tell me?"

"I love Andrew. I love Juliet. I'd lay my life down for them. Siobhan is crazy and will turn on them and Andrew has to know. She's also turned on me and has tried to kill me already. We both need the same thing. Revenge for Gemma and to have Sioban and Andrew permanently put away for everyone's safety."

Tim held the cards and the driver's license in his hand. "This gentleman will escort you to Andrew's office. Wait there."

"That sounds wonderful," Bridget said, barely suppressing a yawn. "I am just so tired." Andrew's couch sounded so good but first she would use the private washroom in his office.

While Bridget slept, Tim called the Fourteenth Floor of One Police Plaza to Commissioner Kelly's office. He had known Raymond Kelly since they both were freshmen at Archbishop Molloy High School. Within half an hour he had an answer. What Bridget had said was true. He dismissed the guard who had watched the sleeping Bridget. Within two hours he had the files on his desk. He read, stunned. What Bridget had told him was only the tip of the iceberg.

"Cui bono," he learned in High School Latin class. "To Whose Benefit," it translated. "Follow the money" was the modern translation. There had to be a lot of it, and it could only come from one place. He started with the financial information between June of last year through the end of September. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for. Over a year's time Siobhan had siphoned almost a million dollars away from the company and into her private account.

He would have his revenge. He could not risk hurting his wife or endanger his legacy for his other children or Gemma's children but he would have his revenge. It might take a little longer but Siobhan and Henry would pay. He began to come up with a plan and Bridget would unknowingly play a key part of it. He called an even older friend, one he had known since they played marbles together. It was a small favor from Sam. He smiled. Sam actually got the best end of the deal. He'd complained to Tim that they needed help at their Deli but couldn't afford it in this economy. This way Sam would have someone for free. He would pay Sam for Bridget's salary and expenses. All he would need to do is keep her under the close and loving watch of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative Coordination Center on Wall Street. He smiled. That shouldn't be difficult.

Most people in New York City didn't know Big Brother really was watching them. In addition to the three thousand police cameras in lower Manhattan there were thousand of private security cameras were tied directly into the central system. You couldn't walk a block in Manhattan without being recorded by at least one police camera. Ray Kelly's goal was to increase the network to 30,000 cameras so the police would have direct video from one camera for every 50 people. All the bank and supermarket cameras would be tied directly into him. Even that was far less than the one camera per thirteen people of London's famous Ring of Iron security system but Tim would help boost Ray's security camera count by getting Steinberg's Deli and the surrounding neighborhood directly tied in.

It would be a good deal for everyone, Tim thought. Sam's business insurance costs would go down and his neighborhood would be safer. Plus the extra hands would give him, Sophie and Moe some rest.

When Bridget stirred, Tim was there. "Bridget," he said sheepishly. "I am really sorry. If I had known all this I wouldn't have told Andrew about Siobhan's affair with Henry." He shook his head.

"Thank you," Bridget said, feeling much better after the nap. "Nobody can tell us apart. We could fool even our own parents."

"I could feel there was something different about you but you look identical. I should tattoo you or something."

She smiled. "It's funny. I have wanted to get a tattoo for months but then I couldn't explain it to Andrew."

He loosened his sleeves. On his upper arm was a red logo with crossed rifles. It read "Second Batallion 1st Marines The Professionals." He then covered it up reverently, remembering the Tuesday in 1965 when the Marines ordered church services and then they hit the LZ in the Que Son valley. "Certain things in life are so much a part of you inside they need to be written in your flesh."

She nodded and pointed to the very top of her shoulder where a cap sleeve would cover it. "My NA anniversary date. When I have the money."

"Right shoulder," Tim said. "It's where a uniform patch for being in combat is worn."

She smiled, so glad he understood. "I will remember that. It has been a battle inside my own head but I have a year of victory now."

"Look, I am really sorry. I have the police reports and will give them to Andrew. Let me try to help. I got a job for you at a friend's Deli and I got you a place to stay. It's not 626 Park Avenue but they're good people and they'll take care of you. And let me buy that tattoo for you."


	4. Going Hunting

Going Hunting

This was too easy, Stavros thought as he put his shoes up on his desk and snacked on takeout souvlakis. This wasn't just the tourist gyro in a pita. These were real souvlakis from Souvlaki GR on Stanton street, skewered sticks of pork, garlic, onion and green pepper wrapped in wax paper like a banana. It was truly the food of the Gods, marinated overnight in lemon juice and olive oil along with oregano and occasion thyme. Then it was skewered on wooden skewers, broiled over charcoal, and generously salted and peppered. He wiped some of the mess off the keyboard in his lap as he relaxed and went through the record of the data feeds. The gas station camera identified well enough the cab she got out of in front of Segalovich's apartment that he could trace it back to the corner. There he got the medallion and plate number from the corner police cam. He used the taxi commission's GPS data on the cab to find out that she had hailed the cab from around the corner from Henry Butler's house. He even found a view of her walking out of Butler's house to hail the cab.

Butler's to Segalovich's house was one leg of her trip. Where did she go after? He got the medallion number and tracked that one too, and smiled.

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission mandated GPS units, calling it the Taxi Passenger Enhancement Program or TPEP. The commission said they required all cabs to install them in to catch cab drivers who cheated their passengers and for use by the New York City Department of Transportation to improve traffic flow. He smiled. The Taxi Commission had to nail a few cabbies that were total frauds to keep the cover story and there were the very public stories about how the GPS data led to the return of valuables left in cabs but the main reason was so they had better track of all the little people's comings and goings. There were some grumbles about the taxi data being used in criminal investigations but after a few more cases like this one where taxi data is used to catch mass murderers he knew the public would beg for it.

He likewise quickly got the medallion number on the cab that picked her up. His eyebrows rose as he tracked that one directly to Columbia University Hospital.

Goren leaned over, sniffing the souvlaki, almost within licking range. "Can I try, just a piece?"

"No." He looked around and Hannah was behind him.

"Stavros, guess who I just got off the phone with?"

"God?"

"Higher than that. The Old Man."

Stavros's eyes went wide. "Really?"

"You better have good news. I don't know why but suddenly the Commissioner wants answers on this case and he wants them yesterday."

"I think I do, but it's going to take a warrant."

"Where?"

"Columbia University Hospital. Martin went from Butler's house to Segalovich's and when she left there she hailed a cab and went to the hospital. Maybe she got a sniff of her own poison and had to be hospitalized."

Hannah understood all too well. In the old days you could just call the hospital switchboard and ask about a patient. With all the new rules and regulations from Washington you needed a warrant to learn anything. "Keep digging. I'll be right back."


	5. Order of Battle

Order of Battle

Andrew didn't wake up until past noon. He felt awful. On top of everything, he had come down with a nasty cold. He still had a new boss and had to keep up appearances. He had come so close to losing everything financially. He couldn't stop worrying about being squeezed out at Martin Charles and having to start over from scratch. He mentally counted his personal reserves and balanced them against all his debts. He could clear perhaps a million but that was all. He had no intention of starting at the bottom again elsewhere and clawing his way back up.

He peeked into Juliet's room in their suite at the Soho Diamond. She was still curled up in a ball under the covers. She might still be there when he came back but he left clear orders in soap on her mirror. "Stay in the hotel room or else!"

He wrote it as if he could trust her, his dear daughter who tried to fleece him. He wondered who in the world he could trust. Not his wife. Not the clone that had replaced her. Not his ex-wife whose trying to kill his wife ended up getting him shot. Not his former business partner who had been in league with his ex-wife. Certainly not his new boss who had obviously bought the firm to squeeze out Siobhan. No, Andrew knew he was alone in a crowded world. He poured himself a whiskey to start the day. He needed just a little something extra, just to take the edge off.

It was well after lunch time when he caught a cab to Martin Charles. On the way over, he allowed himself a quick bracer. The cab driver's eyes met his through the rear view mirror as he downed the hotel mini-bottle of vodka. The cabbie, some Indian or Pakhi with a thick accent, looked at him with sadness and pity in his eyes as Andrew cleared away the smell with a spray of mouthwash and sticks of gum. "What are you looking at?"

"Are you happy," the cabbie asked as they turned the corner.

"What do you mean? I've got a penthouse and more money than you can dream of."

"No, man. Are you happy?"

Andrew didn't want to answer. "Why shouldn't I be," he forced himself. He looked at the GPS screen in the passenger are of the cab, wondering how more minutes he would be stuck there.

"I got a wife. I got three kids. We have a leaky flat in Jackson Heights. They loves me. I love them. I am happy."

"Bully for you."

"If you're that unhappy with your life, change it."

What did he know, Andrew thought. What did any of them know? "Who said I was unhappy?"

"The bottle did."

Andrew finally arrived at Wall Street. He paid the cabbie the fare but not a penny more and then had an extra spray of mouthwash before tossing the empty vodka bottle in the trash.

He caught himself biting his nails in the elevator. He knew he had to be strong.

He went to his office. The room smelled like Siobhan. No, Bridget, he corrected himself. He knew that sweet spice scent of her sweat. He was imagining it, he told himself. He just had to focus. Still it unnerved him.

He tried reading a prospectus on natural gas supplies during the recent crude oil price spikes. He tried to concentrate. He tried even harder to care. Coming in had been a mistake. Everything had been a mistake.

Tim knocked and came in. "I heard about last night. How are you holding up?"

"Fine. Just fine." Andrew did his best to smile but his stomach began to tie up in knots.

"You look like Hell. If you'd been any ordinary employee I'd tell them to take the day off."

"I can handle it."

"That's what I am worried about. Today I can send you home but there will be days when you have to be able to handle it. How is your blood pressure?"

This was infuriating. "Fine," he said, far sharper than he wanted to. He caught himself and then forced himself to speak softer. "It's just fine."

"Your face is visibly flushed." Tim shook his head. "I can't afford for you to have any preventable health issues. I want you to go to my doctor for a thorough physical."

Oh great, Andrew thought. All he needed was for Tim to have the proof that he had been drinking on the job. "Can I do it in the morning? Juliet and I are at the hotel because … there's blood all over the apartment. I need to get it cleaned up before I can bring Juliet back."

"I heard about the shooting. Don't worry. I'll have Andrea make the arrangements." He handed Andrew a piece of paper with an address.

Andrew took the paper and went. There was no point in arguing. He just had to sober up before they took any blood tests. He grabbed a pack of peanuts, two large Pepsis, a Gatorade at the corner hot dog vendor. The cheap "High Fructose corn syrup" fizzy drinks were a classic for washing out the alcohol. The Gatorade and the peanuts would replenish some of the minerals he had washed out. At least that is what he hoped.

Tim shook his head as Andrew walked out. As if his time in the Marines and in business hadn't taught him the difference between high blood pressure and a drunken flush.

All in all, Tim thought this little part of his plan seemed to have been a success. Andrew didn't know yet that Bridget had been there and the nurse would administer the DNA swabs as a "part of what Mr. Arbogast ordered for your examination." The search warrant at Columbia University Hospital gave him the DNA sequences for Siobhan's girls since Henry already had a paternity test already done there. He smiled to himself at how well the operational planning and execution was progressing. He knew the enemy well. He knew their behavior and personality and had a very good idea how they would act based on their past performance. He knew their habits. He had the banks tracing their supplies of money. Over all, the order of battle was progressing well.


	6. Burning in Her Bosom

A Burning in Her Bosom

Siobhan sat at a bus stop opposite the self-storage place where she had rented a mini-storage locker. It made her cringe to ride a bus but she knew that she couldn't afford to take a cab. She mentally counted her assets as she did her best to ignore the people around her. She didn't have much. She had a good quality false passport and ID card in the name of Rebecca Sheldrake. It might be enough to let her get a job. She had a few hundred dollars in cash left over from the ring she had pawned. She'd have to make it last until she could find a source of income. She had two guns and her good clothes and jewelry stashed in the mini-storage unit. She had Henry's bottles of Tylenol and aspirin that she had taken from his medicine cabinet.

She choked down two Tylenols and two aspirins. She felt so bad. She tried to tell herself it was just the hormones raging back and forth but she felt like crying. She felt like she was coming down with the flu or something. She was sure she had a fever. Her stomach hurt but that's what you got for taking aspirin on an empty stomach. Still she needed them. It hurt so much when she went to the bathroom at the storage facility. She'd checked the incision but wasn't inflamed though so she had to still be good.

She didn't want Andrew. She hadn't wanted him since a few months after their marriage. She stayed because his money bought her the things she wanted in her life. He had been a lucky find. She just wanted to tell him she was sorry and get her old life back.

Perhaps she could, she realized. It wouldn't be as good as before but it had to be better than how low she had descended. The bus came. Fortunately she had gotten a metro pass and it had been less than two hours since she started her trip so she could still transfer for free. Even just another one way bus ticket took so much of what little money she had left.

The bus took her towards a battered woman's shelter. She'd managed to talk herself into one for a few days. She smiled. She laid on a story about her abusive alcoholic boyfriend and how she was in fear of her life because he was a cop and told her she could never hide from him. It came all too easily and naturally. The details had come from her dear, old drunken Dadaí of course. The aul fella had knocked around them around plenty, as Daideó had knocked the stuffing out of him when he was young.

She had fled from the twin esteemed institutions of Irish culture, alcoholism and Catholicism. The Church oversaw it all and did nothing as long as they got their cut of the take. She even went to Uncail Rónán and begged for help but he was only interested in his own whiskey and buggering the alter boys. Just thinking about it made her burn inside. A misogynistic hierarchy dedicated to the oppression of women if there ever was one. Oh, they threw Mother Mary in there as pretence but all she was ever good for was having a blessedly male fruit of her womb.


	7. Sojourning in Alphabet City

Sojourning in Alphabet City

Blacks must run the union for chauffeurs to the rich, Bridget thought, looking at the neat, trim and very fit looking Afro-American man in his mid or late 40's with a long, loose fitting windbreaker on. His name was James. She wondered if having a black driver some sort of status thing, like having a Japanese gardener. No, Tim Arbogast didn't need any pretensions.

She was quite sure Arbogast wasn't into pretensions when she saw the car that James led her to. It was a Ford. It was a nice, new looking Ford but it was a car for a dentist, not a billionaire.

James smiled as he opened it. "Not what you expected."

She shook her head.

He buckled up and started it. The engine had a loud, throaty growl. "Pure sleeper car. Tim started with the fastest production all wheel drive made in America and then made it an absolute rocket. It's got an 1100 horsepower Mustang Shelby track engine and a custom tuned suspension to match. He's got most of a car in storage just for when he has to smog this one."

She nodded, comprehending just enough to understand Arbogast better. "You call him Tim."

James nodded. "He says I earned it. I'm not just his driver. I've been his live in body guard for almost eight years. My family eats at his table and sleeps down the hall. He's the greatest."

She nodded. "He is very impressive."

"No, more than that. He likes to help people. He likes to change lives. Don't ever cross him though. He demands absolute loyalty."

She nodded. "I will remember that.

"He's not like other bosses. I've seen um when they are all about the pretending. All about making all the talk and not doing the walk." James winced at the thought. "They're like psychos, you know? They can read you and they are so good at it they know just what to say and how to look so you think they really mean it. Tim, he means it."

Catherine wasn't a psycho, Bridget thought. She was crazy as a loon but she wasn't a psycho. . She had the typical self-will run riot of an alcoholic. She thought the universe should play according to her rules and when it didn't it was always everyone else's fault but her passions were real.

She thought about Siobhan. Was she a "psycho?" Did she have real feelings? Some. She had anger and pride. But except for Sean she didn't really ever seem to have love, not that true love where you will sacrifice anything for them. She shook her head. Something had died inside of her. It wasn't just their parents. No, it was deeper. Siobhan could always fool anyone about which twin she was. Bridget thought of how she would practice so hard and so long all the little differences in manners and how she talked and walked and acted and then Siobhan would get angry with her that she couldn't do it right because she always just did it instantly. "How did you get so lucky?"

"Two tours in Iraq got me out of Harlem and into the NYPD. Fifteen years on the force and I can legally pack anywhere even in New York City."

"Pack?"

"Carry a gun. New York has some very strict laws."

She nodded, now understanding that Solomon had broken those laws for her, at great risk to himself. "That must be very valuable."

"Tim made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"More money?"

He laughed and shook his head. "What's more important than money?"

"Your children."

"Bingo. We live there so my kids go to the best public schools in the country. My oldest boy is going to Princeton pre-medical on a scholarship. My daughter wants to go to MIT. Rebecca, my wife, she gets to always be there when the kids get home to make sure they do the right thing. Try doing that on a cop's salary."

James stopped at the K-Mart on Broadway. "Tim wanted to make sure you had enough of the basic supplies so you can start over." She needed some of everything. It was just a few blocks from the Bloomingdale's in Soho where she had shopped the week before but what a difference those three blocks and that week made. Still, she knew she had to return to the K-mart life style that she had been born to. Was it Arbogast's way of gently driving home the point that she would have no need to ever talk to Andrew again? She would see about that.

Fashionable high heels were out. She got comfortable shoes, relaxed jumpers that even could work for a while as maternity dresses, sensible cotton underwear and underwear, some slacks with elastic waist bands and collared work blouses. A few makeup items were essentials too. The only "extra" she got was a charger for her Droid phone. Andrew had no doubt shut the service off by now but she still could use it as an alarm clock and to organize things and even to play a few games.

After the little shopping trip, James took her to New York Hardcore Tattoo on Stanton Street. "They're the best tats in town," he said with enthusiasm. "And you have an appointment with Tasha."

Getting the tattoo wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be. After donning surgical gloves and sterilizing everything like an operating room, Tasha had an assistant give her some incredibly wonderful Chinese candy. It was so good she lost track of where she was. The shoulder kind of hurt but not very much. It was more of a buzzing feeling and soon she was over it. When she left, she had her NA anniversary on her right shoulder in neat, Celtic looking font in black surrounding a green NA diamond and circle. Tasha even took a picture of it for her album. "We get lots of people who want to celebrate their sobriety."

They went next to Steinberg's Deli on the corner of East 4th St and Avenue B in the Alphabet City neighborhood, just over the other side of Houston Street from the Lower East Side. She looked at the sign, part in English and part in Hebrew. She read what she could. "Steinberg's Restaurant and Delicatessen. Since 1938. Take home foods. Glatt kosher." She would make it work, she told herself. What else could she do with nothing beyond a High School degree except for those cooking classes she had taken while pretending to be Siobhan and no work record she wanted to admit to?

James escorted her in, carrying her shopping bags and her pack. "Hi Sophie, hi Moe," he said to the people behind the cash register. Well here she is."

"Thanks James," Moe said, taking the bags.

The place was much bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It was one of those places that extended far back into the block with rows of diners at the tables. Sausages hung from the window. She read the menu. Some of it was traditional like the knishes and matzo ball soup but they also served all beef hamburgers and Hebrew National hot dogs. It also had a cold sandwich deli counter, coffee bar, soda cooler and desert counter.

Sophie handed James a package. "Dark peasant rye bread with extra kummel, fresh baked, just the way Timmy loves it."

"I'm sure he will appreciate it very much." James smiled and took the package. "Good luck," he said to Bridget as he walked out.

Moe was a short man, only a few inches taller than she was. He wore horn rimmed glasses over his very big nose and his balding hair was grey. She took her pack and one of the packages from Moe. "Come this way," he said with a very nasal, very thick New York accent. He led her through the employee's only door and up a narrow set of stairs. A man from a burglar alarm company was putting a security camera up at the end of the hallway. "This door."

Inside was a small room with a double bed, a few shelves, a coat rack, an old dresses and a table with two chairs. There was a stack of cardboard boxes in a corner. There was no bathroom or kitchen but in a restaurant she would hardly need that. Moe put the bags down on the table. "This was where Saul and Minnie Steinberg slept when they started the deli. Sam's first crib was a drawer in that dresser. Then my parents lived here when they came to America after the war. I used to crash here sometimes when I was preparing to cater a big rush order."

She looked around. "Thank you."

"I know it's not the Ritz."

"It looks very good to me right now."

"Time to meet the boss," Moe said as he walked out and led her back down to Sophie. He took over for Sophie at the cash register as she stepped to the back with Bridget but she kept an eye on the cash register as they talked.

Sophie had a round face with dark hair that was swept back in a style that looked to be from the 1950's. There was a grey line of hair root showing. She had probably been striking once but now she looked like a grandmother who had seen too many sad years. She looked Bridget up and down as if she were deciding how much to buy her for. "Can you cook?"

Bridget nodded. "I consider myself a gourmet cook. I have also taken dozens of cooking classes at the New York Culinary Arts School on West 23rd."

Sophie laughed. "That's a good one."

Bridget shook her head. "No, I am serious. For the last six months I took three classes a week, sometimes more." Siobhan had taken classes several there, no doubt as part of trying to pretend to be a good wife. Bridget continued and took as many as she could squeeze in the time for. She enjoyed it. Cooking was far more relaxing than Siobhan's Pilates yoga. Besides she used the classes in her process of learning how to look like a proper New York rich wife. It was there she learned how they talked, how they dressed and how they entertained. Even their little gossip and chit-chats as they practiced mixing drinks or preparing hors d'oeuvres. Of course professionals would cater any real party.

"Do you know about keeping kosher?"

Bridget nodded. "I understand the rules. I spent many an afternoon in the kitchen of our Orthodox Jewish neighbor and I just reviewed them in a class in Jewish-American cooking."

"You know borsht?"

"Hot borsht or cold?"

"Hot."

"We had Russian and Ukranian neighbors too. Would you like me to make you a good cabbage borsht? I can do it from scratch starting with boiling the beets so you can peel them. It takes a couple of hours but it's so worth it."

"I figured a girl like you would be making Irish skink instead of borsht."

She thought back to the warm kitchens of her neighbors and the pain at home. "My mother died when I was young." They didn't need to hear more.

"I'm sorry. The uniforms are in the dresser upstairs. Get ready and let's see if you can handle doing cold sandwiches."


	8. Make your own bed & tell the truth in it

Make your own bed and tell the truth in it

After due deliberation, Juliet decided that today was not the best day to make Andrew angry so she followed the instructions on her mirror and didn't leave the hotel room.

She ordered a cheeseburger, fries and diet Pepsi for breakfast. As she ate, she went through the New York Times she had sent up for information on what had happened. There wasn't one word about it in that she could find. They had a lovely piece on an old mosaic hidden behind a wall at the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway station and eight pictures for the World War II memorial plaque in the New York Transit Authority's old building on Jay Street but not a word about the shooting at 626 Park Avenue.

Somehow she wasn't too surprised though. The New York Times was owned by members of that good old boy's network of the rich men of New York. Andrew hadn't arrived yet but Tim Arbogast was certainly a member of that elusive club. One discreet phone call from him and the story just wouldn't be published.

She went to her best source of news, Facebook, but none of her friends that were on line knew any details. All they knew that Jimmy the doorman had been killed. Officially the police were "still investigating" that crime.

She couldn't get Jimmy's face out of her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she still kept seeing it every time she closed her eyes. She could feel the blood that had been everywhere.

When Andrew had been shot trying to take the bullet for Siobhan she had been upset and felt just awful but it wasn't the same sickness inside her. When her own dear mother was holding a gun on her father and who she thought was Siobhan at the time, she could feel that her own life was not in danger. Her mother didn't even duck tape her hands. This was worse.

One murderer, two murderers, three murderers and four, can't we have a few more? So many crazies. When she left Catherine she thought life would be normal in New York. How wrong she was. As she lay on the bed staring at the fire extinguisher on the ceiling she wondered why this one was so bad, why this one was so different.

Finally, she had to admit the reason. She was wrong. It hurt her and it hurt her pride to admit it but she had been wrong. This Bridget may have lied her head off about being Siobhan but when it came down to it she asked to go with Catherine knowing fully that Catherine had come to kill Siobhan and might shoot her at any moment. Somehow it made her laugh. That was the closest thing to true mother love she'd ever felt, and it came from someone she wasn't even related to by her father's marriage. It hurt inside. The one person she had come to love and trust was a complete phony.

Then her eyes closed and she saw that Jimmy the doorman and that horrible body. What Bridget had told her at London's place last night was true. Someone had been trying to kill her.

Juliet wondered if she would lie to save her own life. Of course she would. She had lied to Andrew and to Catherine and to Bridget. They all had lied to each other over and over and for far less reason than saving their lives.

She remembered back to the day she told Catherine that she wished Siobhan had been her mother. Siobhan had become different, so much more understanding. It was such a night and day difference from what she remembered and what Catherine had kept saying about Siobhan that it was almost like she was someone else. Of course she was different and she understood her. Siobhan really was someone else. The NA meeting guide she found and had been angry about had been the one Bridget used to find her own meetings. The mother she loved had been a prostitute and a junkie. Perhaps in a way it all fit the Mad Martins.

There was only one decent and honorable thing she could do. She sent Bridget a text.


	9. Good Night

Good Night

Except for Bridget's feet hurting, the sandwich counter was easy work. The sandwiches were so simple it was a little boring but she liked to see the faces of the people, to talk with them as she made the sandwiches. She quickly learned how to make the little up-sells and cross-sells. "Would you like tomato with that?" "How about on garlic bread?" "May I get you a Dr. Brown soda with your sandwich?" She knew the key to them liking her was her profitability and Sophie had been watching her carefully from her royal throne – the cash register.

After about four hours, Sophie tapped her on the shoulder. "Take a break. Make yourself something to eat."

"Thank you. Thank you very much." She was actually hungry by then. She had been craving a corned beef and pastrami sandwich on rye with a smear of potato salad and pickles. The idea of some foods almost made her sick but sometimes she had the strongest and most specific cravings. She had tasted the salt and the grease for hours and almost had been drooling for it.

She silently said grace over her dinner and enjoyed every bite as she washed it down with a glass of water. She was craving a tall glass of milk but there was none in the restaurant. She would respect the Kosher laws and feed her cravings by getting some calcium supplements at a drug store.

Once she finished her dinner, Sophie had her clean up the deli sandwich counter and prepare for opening tomorrow.

By then she was tired. She found that upstairs the bathroom had a small tub and a shower. The curtain looked almost old enough to have been put up by Minnie Steinberg herself. She cleaned up and went to her room.

She knew she had to be up early so she pulled out her phone and turned it on to set the alarm clock on it. She was surprised that Andrew hadn't disconnected the service yet. It came up with several new messages. Greer had left a voice mail asking where she was. She would have to call tomorrow – as soon as she could figure out what to say.

With more than a little anxiety, she pulled up a text from Juliet. "Bridget, UOK? WAYD. Still mad about you lying 2 us but understand why. SRY 4 what I said last night & still want 2 be friends. ILY B4N" She smiled. That had to be the best news all day.

She texted back an answer as she lay down on the bed, yawning. "I am OK. Hugs and kisses. I do always want to be your friend. All is forgiven. I royally deserved it anyway. How are you? How is Andrew?"

Juliet was in her room at their suite at the Soho Diamond hotel. She was lying back on the bed, snacking on microwave popcorn and watching the TV show that most closely resembled her family life, Revenge. When her phone chirped she picked it up and read Bridget's text. Why didn't Bridget just call? Why didn't she just call Bridget?

Dinner had been almost silent. They managed to force out enough trivia to show that they were not angry at each other. He just seemed to be too worn out to talk. She was worried about him. There seemed to be no joy left in him.

During the commercials, she twittered to #Revenge and peeked out the door at Andrew. He was on the computer and on the phone, working away and retreating into that stony British shell of his. She had seen it before, when things were falling apart with Catherine and then when things were falling apart with Siobhan. The only sensible thing was SO obvious but he was far too proud and stubborn to admit it.

The show started up again. She raced back to her bed and her popcorn to see if Daniel would get bail after those men beat him up in the prison shower at Riker's Island.

Siobhan lay alone in a room full of people. She was on a mattress on a floor. It had a sheet on it but it was a mattress on a floor. Another sheet was over the window as the curtain.

When the battered women's shelter hotline told her that one house had room, she realized there very likely would be another woman in the house. She didn't realize that it would be crowded with them. The bedroom she was in had four twin mattresses on the floor. There was no place to step between them.

The other women were laughing and praying. She saw nothing to laugh about and certainly nothing to pray to a pedophile in the sky about. She was tired and felt miserable. She was sure she was coming down with a fever. She must have overdone the walking. Her right leg was cramping and when she bent or flexed her foot it hurt even worse. She took more aspirin.

Praying and more praying. They prayed and prayed over dinner. And what a dinner it was! Stale bread and cooked cabbage and they still prayed and gave thanks over it.

Of all the places she could have ended up, Siobhan got into the one guaranteed to be the absolutely most wretched. A Russian Pentecostal Church from Brighton Beach ran it. Their greatest joy was to sit on a threadbare, stained couch in the living room and read their Bibles or to gather in a circle to pray, shake and start spouting babble in made up languages.

"Good Night," they finally said one to another and gave each other fist bumps before going to sleep. "Good night."

What was so good about it? Siobhan Martin was not meant to sleep on a mattress on a floor with three other women. That was for Bridget. She wanted to spit. She wanted to run away. She wanted to smack the stupid dog that insisted on licking her feet.

Tomorrow she would make plans – plans that included escape!


	10. Judgment Day

Judgment Day

Early the next morning, they took Catherine from her cell at the Bayview Correctional Facility, hand cuffed her and loaded her into a van along with a half a dozen other prisoners. Eventually they stopped. Armed guards hustled them out of the van. She found that she was at the New York Criminal Court building located at 100 Centre Street for her felony arraignment by the state of New York.

Judges hated doing arraignments. It was a thankless job. They were supposed to get through dozens in a day but somebody always stuffed up the works along the line.

Judge Reed Smutts had been semi-retired but some extra money on the bench always came in handy for a few of the extras in life. He could always find all the work he wanted doing arraignments.

He had worked in many courtrooms across New York City, but he always took with him the same three line sign.

Rule No. 1, Be patient. The second line was, Rule No. 2, Be patient, third line, Rule No. 3, Be patient.

He knew how much he needed to operate by that rule.

After several routine cases, the sheriff escorted Catherine into the courtroom. She looked around. This wasn't a TV show, she realized somehow. It was actually happening around her.

The bailiff was a tall Black man. He stood forward and read in a bored voice from a piece of paper. "State Of New York versus Catherine Alice Martin. Case No. 10213. The Honorable Reed L. Smutts, Presiding Judge. Appearances, For the State: Assistant District Attorney Frederick J. Watts. For The Defendant Lillian Hassler, Attorney at Law. In The Criminal Court for the Borough of Manhattan, New York"

Judge Smutts read the charges and behind his thick glasses the caterpillars of his eyebrows shot straight up in amazement. "Ms. Catherine Martin." He shook his head and read the list twice before proceeding in lack of belief."Ms. Martin, you've been charged in an indictment by the Manhattan Borough Grand Jury with felony violations of the penal code namely section 120.10, assault in the first degree, 125.26, attempted murder in the first degree, 135.10, unlawful imprisonment in the first degree, 135.25 kidnapping in the second degree, 125.25 Felony Murder, 105.17 conspiracy in the first degree, section 265.04 criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree and 265.09, criminal use of a firearm in the first degree and a second charge of 135.25 kidnapping in the second degree and a second charge of 135.10, unlawful imprisonment in the first degree and another 265.09, criminal use of a firearm in the first degree and this we have a 265.03, unlawful possession of a weapon in the second degree with the intent to use same against another human being. Those are all felonies. You are also charged with misdemeanor offense 260.10, endangering the welfare of a child. Mr. District Attorney, as I make it that's everything from two class A1 violent felonies to an A misdemeanor?

Assistant DA Watts nodded. "It is."

"Okay." He had a sinking feeling about getting out on time with this case. "Ms. Martin, do you understand what the charges are against you?"

Catherine looked at him, feeling very alone. "I do not."

"Council for the Defense, do you waive the reading of the charges?"

"Yes," said her lawyer, but "No" said Catherine even louder."

Judge Smutts felt the long list in his hand. "Do you really need me to read them to you?"

Catherine's attorney whispered in her ear "This is going to really piss him off. Don't do it."

"Yes," Catherine said firmly, then followed it with a timid "Your honor."

Smutts poured himself a glass of water. This was going to be a long one. He would need to keep his throat from going dry. "Okay. Well, then I will read them to you. In count one, you've been charged that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully assault one Bridget Kelly by putting a dangerous quantity of sleeping pills in her tea and then put her in a bath of water, in violation of New York criminal code Section 120.10, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count two, you've been charged that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully attempt to murder one Bridget Kelly by putting sleeping pills in her tea and then attempt to drown her in a bath, in violation of New York criminal code Section 125.26, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count three, you've been charged with on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully by physical action did detain Andrew Martin, Bridget Kelly and Juliet Martin, a minor, in violation of New York criminal code Section 135.10, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count four, you've been charged with on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did furthermore unlawfully take by gunpoint Bridget Kelly to the domicile of one Olivia Charles, in violation of New York criminal code Section 135.25, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

Catherine shook her head and stepped towards the bench, stopped only by the table and her restraints. "Wait, that was Siobhan Martin. I don't know any Bridget Kelly. I don't know any Bridget Kelly."

Her attorney put her hand on Catherine's shoulder and whispered into her ear. "Keep quiet. Just answer yes or no."

The District Attorney stood. "Your honor, these assaults were done upon Bridget Kelly the sister of Siobhan Martin. The notes here state that Ms. Kelly had been staying with the Martin family and that Catherine Martin in the attempt to murder Siobhan Martin, the wife of her ex-husband, did confuse the two and in fact accidentally almost kill her twin sister instead."

Her head reeled. It couldn't be. She felt crushed. To have failed at killing Siobhan was bad enough, but to have failed at killing a total stranger she thought was Siobhan was unthinkable. She had to get another chance at Siobhan.

Judge Smutts took a swallow of water and continued droning on. "In count five, you have been charged that on or about the 27th of March, the year 2012, in the State of New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did cause the death of one and intentionally conspire with Remy Osterman and other parties not yet named in this indictment to cause the death of one Siobhan Martin, in violation of New York criminal code Section 105.17, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count six, you have been charged that on or about the 27th of March, the year 2012, in the State of New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unintentionally but none the less unlawfully cause the death of one Rex Barton by hiring Remy Osterman to hire a hitman, namely said Rex Barton, to kill Siobhan Martin and thereby cause Mr. Barton to be killed by agent Victor Machado of the FBI during the attempted commission of said attempted homicide of Ms. Martin, in violation of New York criminal code Section 125.25, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count seven, you have been charged that on or about the first of September, the year 2011, in the State of New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully and intentionally conspire with Remy Osterman and other parties not yet named in this indictment to cause the death of one Siobhan Martin, in violation of New York criminal code Section 105.17, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count eight, the indictment alleges that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully posess a handgun that was not licensed or registered to you in the State of New York and in the Borough of Manhattan in violation of New York criminal code Section 265.04, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count nine, the indictment alleges that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully use a handgun during the commission of a felony namely the kidnapping of Andrew Martin, Bridget Kelly and Juliet Martin, in violation of New York criminal code Section 265.09, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count ten, you've been charged with on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully by physical action did detain taxi driver Ranbir Singh as well as the afore mentioned Ms. Kelly on the way to the domicile of Olivia Charles, in violation of New York criminal code Section 135.10, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count eleven, you've been charged with on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did furthermore kidnap and unlawfully hold at gunpoint the taxi driver Ranbir Singh on the way to the domicile of Olivia Charles, in violation of New York criminal code Section 135.25, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count twelve, the indictment alleges that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully use a handgun during the commission of a felony namely unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping of the above mentioned taxi driver Ranbir Singh, in violation of New York criminal code Section 265.09, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

In count thirteen, the indictment alleges that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully possess a firearm with the intention of using this firearm to shoot Andrew Martin and Siobhan Martin, in violation of New York criminal code Section 265.03, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York.

And finally in count fourteen, the allegations are that on or about the 3rd day of April, the year 2012, in Borough of Manhattan, New York, and before the finding of this indictment, you did unlawfully and intentionally endanger the life of a child, one Juliet Martin, by threatening her with the above mentioned firearm, endangering the welfare of said child, in violation of Section 260.10, all of which is against the peace and dignity of the State of New York." So much for any shred of peace and dignity being left in New York, Smutts thought.

The weight of the words are what crushed Catherine. The charges kept coming and coming and coming. "Who wrote up all these charges?"

"Ms. Martin, I will not address questions asked by you as a defendant in this court, do you understand that? If you have some things to say, I ask you to bear in mind that my ears are old and to say it clearly. Now, do you understand that's what you've been charged with?"

"May I see a copy of that?"

"Your own Council should be able to provide you a copy. If not, I will give you a copy of the indictment."

"Please," Catherine begged. "I'd like to see one now."

"Ms. Martin, you need to be real quiet. Now you need to answer the questions I you're not here to question this Court on anything."

"Is there a question before me?"

"Yes." Smutts tried to remember the three rules but this one was definitely trying his patience. "Do you understand that's what your charges are?"

"I do not understand the charges."

Smutts sighed. He had a real live wire here. "Well, do you understand that's what the well, do you read and write okay, Ms. Martin? Do you read and write okay, because I've read these clearly to you."

Patience, Patience, Patience, Smutts repeated from his own sign. This one would require a lot of patience to get through. "Let me summarize for you, Ms. Martin. Two of these charges are class A1 violent felonies. That means the minimum sentence in life in the penitentiary of the State of New York on each these two charges. There are so many other charges I lost count. I think at least six of the other charges are class B violent felonies and one is a Class E non-violent felony. The minimum sentence for the class B felonies is what, five years each? No probation. No programs. No slaps on the wrist. That means a minimum sentence of two life sentences plus God knows how many more years if you are convicted on all counts. Is there anything about that you don't understand? If so I will enter an automatic not guilty plea as I do for all defendants."

"Who wrote all that up about me?"

"Do you understand? I will give you a copy of the indictment, Ma'am. I will not otherwise answer questions addressed to this Court by you. Defense Council, would you please approach the bench?"

Lillian Hassler stepped forward. She'd worn a good suit from Bloomingdale's for this arraignment. For as well as it was going she should have shopped at Salvation Army. "Yes, Your Honor?"

"Ms. Hassler, you need to get your client to behave herself."

Hassler held up her neatly manicured and painted hands in utter frustration. "I am trying, Your Honor. I am trying. She isn't listening to reason."

Smutts sighed and nodded. "Let a plea of not guilty be entered in the record. Was she going to try to set up for an insanity plea? She would do better to plea bargain for a minimum security facility like Lakeview.

After Hassler sat, District Attorney Watts stood again. "Your Honor, we would again tender to the Court information generated by this defendant and in information as is directly related to the arrest and what was discovered at it. We would ask that in addressing his release as with Mr. Osterman that bail should be denied Ms. Martin as well."

"District Attorney, are you submitting these as exhibits?

"We are submitting those as exhibits to the Court."

Catherine stood. "I really want to make bail. I have money. I have jewelry and a huge mansion in Palm Springs."

"You need to be real quiet, Ms. Martin. Exhibit one appears to be a video recording made upon arrest in the police car where according to the transcript provided the defendant allegedly says "Let me kill her. She deserves to die for what she did for me. She stole my life and I have to kill her to get it back. Let me at her again. She's evil and won't die."

Smutts continued with looking at the evidence. "Exhibit two is the taxi cab video recording from medallion cab 19121, driven by the above mentioned Mr. Ranbir Singh, wherein Ms. Martin is shown pointing a gun alternately at Mr. Singh and Ms. Kelly during the ride to Ms. Charles's home. The prosecution has included still shots of Ms. Martin holding the weapon at both of above named people so thankfully I don't have to watch it."

"Exhibit three submitted by the State is a set of security videos from 626 Park Avenue showing the defendant proceeding from the Martin apartment on the 14th floor, into the elevator and out the door of the lobby, all the while holding a gun on Ms. Kelly. Again the prosecution has been kind enough to provide stills of Catherine Martin holding a gun on Ms. Kelly."

"Exhibit four submitted by the State is the federal form 4473 background check paperwork filled out by the defendant for the purchase of a Rossi model 3502 revolver serial number 9316-47412 at Charlie's Armory in Miami."

"Exhibit Five is the NYPD Crime Lab photographs of the gun that Agent Machado of the FBI allegedly wrestled from Ms. Martin and it is also the same model and serial number gun." Smutts was tempted to add that it looked just like the same gun as in the police supplied photos but he knew better than to put forth any of his own opinions.

"Exhibit Six is the finger print report on the five rounds of Remington HD Ultimate Home Defense .38 Special +P ammunition found in the afore mentioned gun. Let it be shown in the record that the NYPD crime lab report states that the fingerprints are a match with Ms. Martin's fingerprints that are on file."

Judge Smutts carefully examined the next one. "What is this next thing? It appears to be what is this, an arrest record?"

Assistant DA Watts nodded. "Yes, Your Honor. This is Ms. Martin's criminal information from the state of Florida. It includes a DUI record November of 2010."

Lillian Hassler, Catherine's attorney stood. "Your honor, I must protest. A DUI case in Florida has no bearing upon these matters."

District Attorney Watts raised his hand and stood firm. "Not the DUI itself, the results of it. We have a copy of the psychosocial evaluation mandated by the State of Florida, administered by one Maria Rodriguez, licensed social worker." He picked up his copy of the report and found the right spot. "Ms. Rodrigues states and I quote 'Catherine Martin is a time bomb waiting to explode again. She takes no responsibility for her actions and blames everyone else for what she herself has caused to be. It's the police's fault. It's her ex-husband's fault. It's her ex-husband's current wife's fault. It's her daughter's fault. She acts as if her crime could be wiped away by having said a good enough excuse. She has manifested no remorse for her crime. The firmest response under the law needs to be given because it is my judgment that she will offend again and Heaven knows what the consequences will be next time.'"

Catherine stood again, furious. She shouted "This is character assassination."

Judge Smutts banged his gavel just as the headache was banging at his temples and the back of his head. "Ms. Martin, You need to be real quiet. You need to be real quiet. Okay. We will enter this as exhibit number, whatever the next exhibit is."

"Exhibit Seven," the bailiff said.

Catherine protested irately. "But that's all a bunch of lies about me."

Lillian Hassler took Catherine by the shoulder as if to force her back into her seat."Sit down and shut up, now," she forcibly whispered into Catherine's ear.

Again Judge Smutts banged the gavel. He didn't like having to do it. That meant that he had lost control of the courtroom. He hated when some fool stole away the smooth and proper operation of the courtroom. Yet he tried to keep his patience. "Ms. Martin, you have been charged with two class A1 felonies, each of which carries life in the state penitentiary. It would behoove you to follow the advice of your counsel and stop making any further outbursts in this court."

Assistant District Attorney Watts stood again. "Your Honor, given the extreme seriousness of the charges we believe that she is a danger to others and a risk for flight. We therefore request that bail be denied."

"Agreed. The defendant will be remanded back to the custody of the Sheriff's department."

Catherine was outraged. "But you can't do that to me."

"I just did."

Catherine struck back with the only thing she had left, her mouth. "You're a filthy, senile cock sucker." After all, what could he do to her?

Silence fell through the courtroom followed by the sweep of an awkward giggle.

At that, Watts turned to the new assistant next to him and whispered. "Don't move a muscle."

Judge Smutts could not believe this one. His ears flushed red with rage. "Ms. Martin, one thing about getting older is that your hearing sometimes misses things. I will assume I didn't hear what I thought I heard and complete this process."

Catherine stood. "Then I will repeat it for you. You are a FILTHY SENILE OLD COCK SUCKER!"

At that, Judge Smutts turned to the bailiff and said with a smile. "Remand Ms. Martin to Solitary Confinement for 30 days. This court is now adjourned."


	11. Hôpital de la Charité

Hôpital de la Charité

«J'ai besoin d'une cigarette» was the first thing Siobhan's room-mates could make out from her the next morning. She was lying in the bed moaning and mumbling while the rest were dressing for the day. «Le service en chambre, s'il vous plaît envoyez un paquet de Gauloises Blondes. »

"I think I heard 'Cigarette'" said Ana, who was putting on her work shoes. "Didn't she listen that no smoking is allowed?"

"Maybe she doesn't speak English," Norma said, sitting besides her, touching her sweat matted forehead. "Wow, she's burning up."

Katrina, who ran the shelter, was downstairs slicing up day old bread they had received as a donation to make cereal. She was a plump, little woman who looked like she should have been a happy grandmother. Instead, her children were the women who came to her shelter. Ana went and found her. "The new girl in our room is really sick. She's burning up with fever."

Katrina took off her apron and handed it to Ana. "Take over here," she said, fetching her medical kit.

Upstairs, Katrina checked Siobhan's temperature. It was almost 104. "Help me get her clothes off. We have to get this fever down." As Katrina started to sponge Siobhan down, she saw that her incision was red and swollen, like a giant pimple. "She's had a C section, maybe a week ago. It's infected. I think it's Staph." She sighed. "You girls, grab your gear and move out of here. It is contagious. Take a hot bath and wash your clothes before anything else. This can kill you."

«Activez le climatiseur, » Siobhan said. «Cette chambre n'est pas tolérable. »

Katrina considered giving her a shot of the Duo Pen she had in the back of the fridge, figuring that the broad-spectrum antibiotic would probably do the trick. If it had been a girl she'd known longer, she would have. But she didn't want to risk the whole shelter being shut down because she gave someone a shot of horse antibiotics to some stranger if things didn't go well. Instead she told Ana to get her phone from her purse so she could call 911.

When the ambulance finally came, Katrina didn't go with. She had a whole house of women to look after. Besides there was just something about her that Katrina didn't like. Instead, she turned over all the possessions and clothes she had. They were an odd lot. The purse looked like it actually was made by Coach Leather and not just some knock-off. It looked worth hundreds. She shrugged. Perhaps she had stolen it.

The ambulance took her to Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica. There she waited in a delirium for hours to be admitted in the Emergency Room and then finally to receive treatment. They put her in the Diagnostic Care Unit and gave her an IV of saline and exactly the same antibiotic as the Duo Pen horse antibiotics that Katrina contemplated giving her, except their bottle was far, far more costly. The difference was that it took hours longer to get help and she received far less personal care.


	12. Good Morning

Good Morning

Starting early in the morning, Stavros sat playing sudoku on his phone while he sat at Columbia University Hospital, waiting for Siobhan to come and collect her infant daughters. They had traced the surveillance footage to maternity. They learned yesterday that she had an emergency C-section there under the name of Rebecca Sheldrake. They knew that Henry Butler had visited her there and was the name on the birth certificates. They also knew that Henry had a paternity test and he wasn't the father.

There was a bulletin out for Siobhan and for all the aliases they had found for her but everyone thought the best chance to catch her was right at the hospital. She had to come back today. Today was the day she was supposed to pick her twins up. The nurses had said she had been there often. One night she even slept there.

Yet, she didn't show. He waited for hours and hours. He got himself a pastrami sandwich from the hospital cafeteria. The bread was dry and the Swiss cheese had a vapid taste and was oily, like cheap Kraft slices. The mustard was definitely generic. It was definitely a disappointment.

Yet nobody came.

Eventually his replacement came. He had been subjected to enough disappointment and gastronomic insult for one day and went home to get a decent dinner.

Andrew woke Juliet and ordered her to get ready for school and then silently retreated to his bathroom. She managed to stagger out of bed.

Breakfast for Juliet was drier than her toast. She listened. Andrew gave her strict orders. She nodded and said "Yes, Daddy" when he paused for effect.

At least Juliet got to leave the hotel room and return back to school. She truly looked forward to it. School beat staring at the walls and returning to school meant a vestige of normality and routine was going to return to her life. Unfortunately, Solomon had to drive her directly from the hotel to school, per Andrew's orders. Not even a quick Starbuck's stop.

As Solomon drove her through the rush hour traffic, Juliet answered Bridget's text.

Bridget woke early, before the alarm went off. That sick feeling in her stomach roused her. She tried to get some crackers from downstairs but her stomach didn't want to hold.

As she wretched, she looked at the women's room. Perhaps too much time on Park Avenue had spoiled her but she could not imagine Sophie's customers liking what they saw either. She stared at the thick, crusty brown ring was inside the bowl. The tile was gross and the grout was thoroughly stained.

She poured a big cup of coca-cola in the toilet bowl and let it soak. It was an old trick she learned at High School Chemistry class. Coca-Cola was as acidic as vinegar. The acid quickly broke down the stains. While it soaked, she got down on her hands and knees with a brush and cleaned the floor.

As the bathroom finally began to look like some place good enough to puke in, Bridget heard the back door open. She went out and looked. It was Sophie and Moe along with another man. He was about her age and had that look of relatedness to Sophie that came from decades of marriage. "Hi," Bridget said, waving with the toilet brush still in her hand.

"Is everything alright," Moe asked as Sophie stepped in to see what she was doing.

"I am just cleaning it. It was really gross."

"It wasn't that bad," Sophie said. "We have a Chinese woman that cleans it every night." She inspected the bathroom, looking for needles or matches or anything out of the ordinary. All she found was a clean bathroom.

Bridget shook her head. "I've seen cleaner bathrooms at roadside gas stations in Wyoming." Then she continued scrubbing the tile. "Customers don't like a disgusting bathroom. They'll go to someplace else next time. I've been scrubbing and scrubbing using a tooth brush on that grout and it's not nearly done."

Moe checked out the progress. "I'll get on Mae-Noi and if she doesn't shape up we'll replace her."

"Get washed up," Sophie said. "You need to be getting ready for customers."

"Yes, Sophie." Bridget nodded and went back upstairs.

After checking the bathroom once again, Sophie went upstairs to pull the cash to open the day with from the safe but she heard a retching sound from the upstairs bathroom. She peeked in and saw Bridget on her knees puking. "Another blonde shiksa that got herself knocked up," she thought silently as she silently closed the door. Tim Arbogast couldn't be the father, could he, she wondered. Sam would know.

Bridget spent the morning making sandwiches. It wasn't until her lunch break that she checked her phone for messages. She went right to the one from Juliet. "Dad hhis. U r awol. Ur addy? Cm! Imu b4n." If she translated it right, it meant "Dad is hanging his head in shame. You are away without official leave. What is your address? Call me! I miss you bye for now."

She quickly responded "Got job steinberg's deli 53 avenue b in east village. I will call when i get off work. I love you."


	13. Just Wondering

Just Wondering

It was that late afternoon hour, after lunch and before the dinner rush and Sophie kept wondering who this pregnant girl from Montana was and how she tied in with Timmie. She kept wondering as she sneaked little glances at her as Bridget made sandwiches and she rang up the customers. There was something oddly familiar about her. She knew she had seen that face before, the same concerned, awkward and yet hopeful expression.

The clothes were all wrong, she finally realized. She kept trying to see what that face fit in and finally she remembered it in black with a fashionable hat instead of a Steinberg's Deli baseball cap.

It was at Gemma's funeral. Timmie naturally sat with Sam with the family and so of course she sat next to Sam. She remembered Timmie giving this one such an evil eye as she cried in front of the coffin, as if he could barely restrain himself from putting her in the grave himself. It was the same angry face he had for that schmuck of a husband of hers. She felt like spitting, Gemma had married so beneath her. He was a deadbeat lazy nothing who pretended to be a writer.

Sam would know the juicy details but Sophie knew he'd never tell. The bond between Timmie and Sam went two decades longer than her bond with Sam. They had done everything together from playing Army as children to fighting in Viet Nam together. They had been best men at each other's weddings. Timmie was there for Bernie's briss and his bar mitzvah. They had been there for each of Timmie's daughter's first communions. She would try Moe to see if he remembered anything, but she knew she'd get no information from Sam.

She knew she had seen Bridget a few other times at Gemma's over the years. This was the girl that Gemma had said she went to cooking classes with. Of course, that fit. Only that was when the twins were first born, not just in the last six months.

It was three years ago because Timmie was having her deliver dinners there personally. His first grandsons, and now he even had two. He was so proud that one of his children had finally given him grandsons, not just more granddaughters. She smiled at her memories of Timmie's joy. If only Bernie would get married and make some grandbabies for them already.

When you begin to peel away one mystery another one came back. Sophie remembered having such a problem with her name. She couldn't pronounce it and she couldn't remember it. Bridget wasn't a name she'd have trouble remembering. Bridget Bardot. Saint Bridget of Kildare – more dear to Irish Catholics than any Italian Pope. Bridget the Irish mouse in "An American Tail." She'd always loved that movie.

Why was Sam not surprised to see her scrubbing the bathroom? She knew when he seemed too relaxed, too comfortable. Timmie had told him everything. She could feel it.

When Moe came out of the kitchen she had him take over at the cash register and went over to Bridget. "You put in eight hours. You want to make more money or stop?"

Bridget smiled. "I'd like to stop if I could. I'm tired."

"Clock out then."

As Bridget went in back to punch out, Sophie followed her. "So, you're from Montana?"

Bridget nodded. "I was there for a couple of years."

That made Sophie even more curious as she followed Bridget back upstairs. It didn't fit with seeing her at Gemma's after the twins were born.

"What did you do there?"

"Oh, I worked at a restaurant and bar."

"In the kitchen."

Bridget smiled, trying to phrase it as well as possible. "No, up front. With the customers. I like your place much better. You're nicer than my old boss and you have so much better food." She desperately wanted to steer away from the details of Bodaway Macawi.

"Did you get pregnant in Montana?"

Bridget's ears and face flushed. She didn't want them to but she couldn't help it, not with her fair Irish skin. "Who, I never said …"

"A mother knows these things."

Quiet tears began to come down Bridget's face. "I'm not even sure. I haven't had a pregnancy test yet."

"Why not?"

Bridget sighed. "No time and no money. A week ago, we had a wedding date and I had a ring on my finger. Things just blew up all of a sudden and now I have nothing. Mr. Arbogast took pity on me and got me a job here."

That story made no sense to Sophie. She thought she had remembered wrong but she knew she never forgot faces.

They would fire her, Bridget knew it. They wouldn't want a grumpy pregnant woman behind their deli counter. "Please," she said. "I can work. I have months before I'll even be hardly showing. I can go back downstars and work right now. I'm strong."

There was such a look of panic on Bridget's face that Sophie knew to stop. She looked like the truly desperate, as if this was the last job left on Earth. "No. I'm sorry. I was just curious. It's alright. If Timmie says you're good, you're good with us."

"Mr. Arbogast is such a dear, kind man. Always trying to help people, always trying to make their lives better." That's what James his bodyguard said anyway, and Bridget thought it was the right thing to say. It was right. He could have thrown her out instead of getting her a place to start over. She couldn't imagine staying with Greer for more than a day or two, not once Greer learned the truth about her.

"Yes," Sophie said, thinking that Bridget had been a good worker and that he was paying for her to be here. But why did he pay for the security system upgrade? The old system still worked. "Look, Saturday we're closed for Shabbos. You go out and get a pregnancy test. I'll give you one of the delivery boy's metro cards from the register tomorrow. Alright?"

Bridget looked up. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

After she washed her face, she went in her room and called Juliet. She should be home from school and Andrew wouldn't be home yet. She took her shoes off her aching feet, lay down on the bed and dialed.

In a moment, Juliet answered. "Hi. Siobhan? Bridget? Oh God, what do I call you?"

"Friend. The rest isn't important. How are you?"

"Oh awful! I have a math test tomorrow and I just don't understand it at all. It's geometry and I just don't get it."

"I'd help you if I were there, Sweetie. You know that."

"I know. We'd order Chinese and you'd make me understand it. But I just can't see this at all. They want me to do all these proofs. A triangle is a triangle. What do you mean theorem? What do you mean prove that this triangle is related to that triangle?"

"It was hard but you're smart. You can do it. And Andrew can help, better than I can."

"If he ever comes." Juliet sighed. "Maybe you could come. I'd pay for your cab here and back."

"Oh you have no idea I want to. How much I want to see you and hold you in my arms. But what will Andrew say?"

Juliet thought. He had been so distant. "He's not doing good. The hotel minibar is getting drained?"

"Hotel minibar?"

"Yeah. We're at the Soho Diamond. You didn't clean up after you snuffed that guy and so Andrew's getting that hallway redone."

"Tell him to get rid of that awful picture."

Juliet giggled. "Oh God, the giant Siobhan. You have NO idea how many times I just wanted to take that thing down, draw circles on it and use it for a dart board."

"So did I."

"What an ego!" There was an awkward pause. "So what are you doing at a Deli?"

"Making sandwiches mainly."

"Making sandwiches?"

"It's honest work. It's not exciting but it's nothing to be ashamed of. I am glad to have it and a roof over my head right now."

"You could have stayed with Greer and London."

"Siobhan could. Not Bridget."

"I want to see you. Maybe Saturday?"

"I am off work Saturday. We're not that far apart, just a few subway stops on the F train."

"It's a date. I think someone's at the door. Love you."

"I love you."

Unfortunately for Juliet it was just housekeeping. She tried to study but it wasn't coming. Andrew eventually texted that he was in meetings so she just ordered dinner. While she ate she took a bit of a break and watched Becca search Paul's cabin for signs of Michael on Missing. Then she had to see what was affecting Adele's memory on Grey's Anatomy. Was it Alzheimer's? Was her memory going forever?

She was tired. She didn't even finish Grey's Anatomy. It was too late to study. As she lay down to sleep she wondered whether any man really did what they promised when they said those marriage vow lines. Did they ever really forsake all others from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish until death do they part? Catherine and Andrew sure didn't. Andrew and Siobhan didn't.

Bridget felt so much better after her call to Juliet. There was hope. There really was. She wondered if she would ever get a chance to return to being a princess in her castle atop 626 Park Avenue. At least Juliet would let her in the door. Still, she knew she had hurt Andrew and he was the one who would have to forgive her. She set her phone alarm and took a short nap. She was just so tired.


	14. Recovery

Recovery

Bleep, bleep, bleep. Bridget's phone alarm rang. She yawned, rolled over and turned it off. With a stretch, she got up and checked the time. She had overslept but if she hurried she knew she'd be there in plenty of time. The nap set her up with enough energy to make it but somehow she felt worse – horribly sad and lonely inside. She made herself get up. It was just all those hormones. It would pass she kept telling herself. She would feel better soon.

She knew she looked a mess but she couldn't care. She just put her Steinberg's cap over the disaster that was her hair and didn't even bother to change out of her work T-shirt.

By now she was vaguely hungry but she just waved to Sophie, grabbed a couple of crackers and walked on out. She could eat later.

Sophie was curious where Bridget was going that was so important she was eating crackers for dinner so she stepped outside to see. Her question was soon answered. Even though it was New York, it was a small neighborhood. Everyone knew everything about everybody on that block and so Sophie knew exactly what was going on.

Bridget didn't even have to leave the block to get to her destination. The Sister Marion Agnes House, just a few buildings down on 4th Street. She had gotten the address from the Greater New York Region of Narcotics Anonymous help line. It was a closed meeting and a Women's meeting and it couldn't be more convenient to the Deli. She hoped to make this her home group.

Sister Marion Agnes House was an old, tall red brick building. She found the metal stairs that led to Nazereth Housing and rang the bell and when the door opened she found the meeting room.

The meeting was held in a room that looked like it was used for many things including a nursery. Despite the toys scattered around and the cartoon characters on the walls, somehow the made it like every other NA meeting room with strong coffee and uncomfortable metal chairs. Cardboard signs with the twelve steps and twelve traditions of NA hung from the white board at the front. Smaller signs like "Easy does it" and "One day at a time" hung between the bunny rabbits and ducks. Bridget as she filled her cup with water. Caffeine wasn't good for babies.

As Bridget sipped her Styrofoam cup of water, one sign on the wall struck her. "To thine own self be true." The saying was from Hamlet. She remembered that from High School Lit class. Polonius was giving advice to his son. He told his son, above all else to thine own self be true. Don't lie to yourself.

It was a common enough sign at NA meanings but it still left Bridget depressed. She knew how often she had lied to herself over the years and how her lying to herself and others over the last seven months had cost her.

A fat Hispanic woman was passing around printed sheets in plastic sleeves. Bridget knew what she was doing. NA had no exact form and certainly it had no organization but it did seem to have a similar tradition be it Montana or Brooklyn. The woman saw Bridget and turned, looking at her as if she was somehow out of place. "Hi, I'm Garabina. Would you be willing to read?"

"Of course," taking one of the sheets. "I'm Bridget."

"You work at Steinberg's?"

"I just started this week."

It wasn't a big meeting room. There were three round tables, each with eight chairs around them. She found a seat at a table, really just like any other seat but this one was empty. She waved awkwardly to the other women around the table. They were a mixed group, every different age and race. One was a transsexual man who looked like a linebacker in drag. She called herself "Wanda June."

When 7:00 came, Garabina went to the chair at the front and began reading. "Good evening. My name is Garabina and I am an addict. Welcome to the 7:00 Lucky Ladies meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. We meet here every Thursday night at 7:00. Please help me open this meeting with a silent prayer for the addict who is not yet in recovery and then with the Serenity Prayer."

Bridget had truly grown to love those simple words. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." So many things she wanted so badly were outside of her control. As she said the prayer dozens of times a day as she thought of Andrew and Juliet, she knew it was ultimately up to them and God.

As Bridget's mind went into a thousand directions Garabina of course continued on with chairing the meeting. "NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. This is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using. We suggest that you keep an open mind and give yourself a break. Our program is a set of principles written so simply that we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work.

We are not interested in what or how much you used or who your connections were, what you have done in the past, how much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help. The newcomer is the most important person at any meeting, because we can only keep what we have by giving it away. We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean. It is traditional to read from the White booklet of Narcotics Anonymous and I have asked Wanda June to do this."

Wanda June stood and read. She had a deep, baritone voice, almost like a foghorn. She made Andrew sound like a soprano. It would have been funny if the words hadn't been ones that she had learned the hard way were ones she absolutely had to follow. They were from a section of the little white book of NA called how it works. Bridget had read it over and over and heard it read perhaps a hundred times. Some days she felt good when she heard it, like the day she got her one year chip. Some days like today she felt miserably inadequate. Her mind glazed over as Wanda June read the first two sections of How it Works but other parts seared her brain like an accusation. "3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

Bridget's lips trembled. There was one thing she hadn't even put into her fourth step "searching and fearless moral inventory." Ha, she knew how shallow it really had been. She had ignored it – it wasn't illegal and it wasn't an important or a part of her life then. Yet now she knew it was growing like an ugly cancer on her future of living clean."

"5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

There it confronted her again. She knew what she had to do. It wouldn't be easy but she had to.

"8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

How could she ever make amends to Andrew? How could she begin after half a year of almost compulsive lying come to him and everyone she actually cared about and even some she didn't.

"12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

She vaguely heard Garabina say "I have also asked Bridget to read Just for Today" but it took the black woman in the lime green dress next to her elbowing her to get her to stir from her depressed feelings of inadequacy.

It had always been Bridget's favorite reading. "Just for today, my thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.

Just for today, I will have faith in someone in NA who believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery.

Just for today, I will have a program. I will try to follow it to the best of my ability.

Just for today, through NA, I will try to get a better perspective on my life.

Just for today, I will be unafraid. My thoughts will be on my new associations, people who are not using and who have found a new way of life. So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear."

Garabina asked if there were any visitors from out of town. Bridget didn't stand. This was home now. Then she asked if anyone needed a chip. She asked for 24 hours, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days or six months of clean time. Then with a grin she asked if there were any NA anniversaries.

The woman next to her in lime green stood and said with a raspy voice "My name is Lateesha and I am an addict and I have four years clean today." The audience clapped enthusiastically as Garabina hugged Lateesha and gave her a four year chip from a Tupperware container.

They passed the collection baskets. Bridget looked at the basket sadly. When she was Mrs. Martin she had always put in a twenty of Andrew's money. She put in a hundred when she received her one year chip. Today she had nothing to give.

"My name is Lateesha and I am an addict. I'm supposed to tell you of how it was before, how I got here and what it's like now. So, I was born in Crack City in Washington Heights. I didn't want to be a junkie. I saw them all around me. My mother, she was a junkie. I didn't want to be like her. She said my daddy was a no good junkie. I don't know. I never met him."

Bridget had noticed that NA meetings were like a family reunion. You met people who you'd never seen before in your life but they think and talk and feel like you. The details were different from Bridget's childhood in Woodlawn in the Bronx but the story was the same. The feeling of deep fear and loneliness Lateesha described, of being in a room full of people and being the only one there was just the same. She spoke of that same feeling of awkwardness, of hating home, hating being around her own addicted family that Bridget had. She spoke of how that drink made her feel like everyone else. She could talk to people and wasn't afraid of everything.

As Lateesha talked of how it all began to go wrong for her, Bridget's mind began to drift back to those first nights where she drank herself to sleep after their mother died and how she found life only seeming normal when she had a couple.

Lateesha had handed her chip to someone as she went up to speak. It had been lovingly passed around the room. It finally was Bridget's turn. Bridget felt it. It was solid bronze and was warm and alive. It had strength and purpose. She knew how she had been clinging onto her chip for dear life lately. Even though hers had the same words on it she read it, front and back. "Self, God, Society, Service" with a roman IV for four on the front and "My gratitude speaks when I care and when I share with others the NA way."

Lateesha spoke of how she had turned to the dope when the drink wasn't enough, just a little weed at parties, just again and then how she had chasing the dragon. When smoking the heroin was too much of a waste she found herself snorting it and then finally shooting it, just a little skin popping. Then all her dreams went dark. She joined those people she said she never would become. She shoplifted. She sold herself and finally turned to dealing to feed her habit. She tried on and off for years to kick it. She tried ibogaine. She was in and out of jail and clinics. She tried methadone. For Bridget, it was that awfulness after Sean died. At first Bridget did anything to get drunk enough to black out and then when the whiskey wasn't enough she moved on to the pills. It was truly a miracle she didn't die from all the things she had combined over the years.

Perhaps God really did want her to be alive. Perhaps he did have a purpose for her to be there. She looked down at her stomach. Maybe he really cares about the little bean. Bridget knew she should have been dead enough times in the last year. She stopped and counted. Bodaway Macawi the night Shaylene was murdered, then the first hitman Catherine sent, then almost being killed twice by the second one, then Catherine herself and then the final confrontation with Macawi. Six times when she should have been dead.

Lateesha had been in and out of NA for years but had continued to relapse. One story caught Bridget's attention because it was so true. "I relapsed again though I don't know if you could really say I relapsed considering I didn't really want to come back after I relapsed a week before. I called my sponsor that morning, basically begging her to tell me what's wrong with me and she said the most wise thing I've ever heard. She said 'Lateesha, we're a group of diseased kids. We try desperately to prove that we're normal. You want to be normal because you want to be able to have a normal relationship with someone. But you keep trying to drink and drug yourself normal. Don't you realize that normal people don't have to use to be normal?'"

Lateesha took a breath from an inhaler. Her voice had been getting raspier and raspier. Giving her story like this was obviously difficult for Lateesha. Then she was able to tell what her life was like now and finish. She had a one bedroom apartment here in Sister Mary Agnes House. She had a job at a market. It wasn't great but it paid for the bills. She had found her Higher Power. Right there in Sister Mary Agnes House, she had found her Higher Power. Best of all, she said she had a two year old boy who never had seen his mother use and never would. She gave the third step as her the topic. "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

The other woman clapped and then gathered around and hugged Lateesha and thanked her. Bridget joined the line. "Your story is so much like mine. Only the little details were changed."

"That's just the way it always is" Lateesha answered.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, she met in group. She wanted to have some of the small chocolate cake was for Lateesha's anniversary but knew she could not hold it down. When it came her time to share, she told the truth. "My name is Bridget and I am an addict. I have been clean for a year now but I wasn't for a very long time. I spent fifteen years in a fog because I was always one substance, or two substances or three. I started with sips of my father's whiskey and beer. I ended up with whatever pills I could snort that would let me black out and temporarily let me leave my fears and self loathing behind. I hated life and wanted to die. I have struggled with the whole God thing. For years, God seemed to be this being who hated me, who cursed me with problems I didn't want and didn't deserve. I didn't pray. I didn't want to attract any more lightning bolts. When I walked into the doors of NA, well I got pushed in. You understand. Each of the steps was hard. I didn't want to admit to myself that I was an addict and that there was nothing I could do to control myself. I didn't want to let anyone or anything else have control over me." She shook her head. "Yet I knew inside that since I had made such a mess out of everything I did that it would take someone bigger and better than me to clean it up."

She paused, looking at her belly. "I have seen so many problems in the last year. Yet all the problems I had right before I started at NA have been resolved. Now I have new ones. My first sponsor told me that the everything will pass away, the good and the bad. Just give it time. Everything around you except your working the program and your relationship with your Higher Power is just today's entertainment. I have seen that in the last year. I have lost everything I thought I had. Money, friends, family. Yet I think I now have myself. And with that I'll pass."

After the meeting, she stopped Lateesha. "I need a sponsor and I feel you're it."

Lateesha shook her head. "Girl, can try but I am no good at the fancy learning. All I can do is tell you what the steps are and tell you when you're not being honest with them."

Bridget smiled. "That's exactly what I need."

They stopped and talked as the other women began to put away the signs and the tables. She got some very good advice from Lateesha about free clinics. Then fate or God put the spot light on what she had to do next. She could not deny it. A priest from the church that was connected to St. Mary Agnes House walked in, waved and began to rack the chairs and move the tables. She followed him, taking one of the chairs as he worked. He was small, about Moe's height, with a broad face and frame and brown skin. He looked so young, even younger than she was. She swallowed and said it. "Father, when can I please make confession?"

"How long has it been, my child?" He spoke with a thick Hispanic accent.

She thought about his question. "About six years, maybe eight." She scratched her head. "I'm not sure exactly."

He pulled out his phone and went through his calendar. "Tomorrow night, at 6:30 at the church. Can you be there?"


	15. Disintegrated

Disintegrated

On Friday morning as he and Juliet sat in the back of Solomon's limo Andrew sincerely believed that life was really beginning to turn around. He knew his calendar was busy at work and that the apartment's repairs were well under way. Life would look just as it always had. Minus that picture of Siobhan of course. He would burn it. He even let Juliet stop at Starbuck's and get a Venti Iced Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino Blended Crème before dropping her off at school.

As Solomon drove him to the office, Andrew reviewed a PowerPoint presentation he was going to give to a prospective client. It looked perfect.

Andrew's true product was information, but not just any information. Most people's information was about the past or the present. Andrew's most valuable information was about the future. He used information already available now to build scenarios of how events would play out in the future and then he would research those scenarios to prove or disprove that they must occur.

The scenario he was researching was that the cost of crude oil would dip in May and June from its current height but would rise again sharply by mid to late September.

The only constant in the world was change. Usually more than force was acting to cause that change at the same time and usually some were in opposite directions. The question was determining which would be strongest. He knew the Greek and Spanish economies were disintegrating. That brought down not only usage in those countries but worldwide manufacturing and therefore global demand. People who had bet on the price continuing to rise would have to dump because they had bought on credit.

Three groups made up 70% of the world's oil production: OPEC, the Arab League and Russia. Russia's economy needed oil to be above $117 a barrel just to balance their budget. As the price of oil dipped because of the economic meltdown in Europe they would have to make up for it quickly and push the economy back up. The price of oil was directly linked to the price of automobile petrol and that was directly linked to voter satisfaction in the American presidential election. By manipulating the price of oil countries outside the United States could directly control the US Presidential election because Americans did so love their giant automobiles. If they could raise the price of oil in time so that the price at the pumps would peak shortly before the elections in November then there would be a Republican in the White House. One nation had a tremendous stake in regime change in the United States, Israel. The current American president had not been nearly as supportive of Israel as his Republican predecessors and the two Republican front runners were both religious fanatics who would be sure to back Israel as a part of their own end of times dogma. All Israel had to do was to carefully time the perception that there would be a conflict in the Mideast and the price of oil would rise. If this coincided with Russia's push to shore up the price of oil then the resulting relative change could be massive.

Forecasting manipulations of commodity prices had been very profitable. If he was right then the price of crude could drop to perhaps $90 a barrel in June. If his customers bought oil futures in June for receiving oil in September and the price of oil went up to $120/barrel in September then in a little over three months his customers would make about a 30% profit.

Andrew knew his job was to produce such results every quarter. If he would be correct three times out of four then his customers would double their money every year. In a decade, an investment of just one million dollars should yield a billion.

This meant of course that he had to be right. He needed to get every assumption quantified. What would the downward pressure be from the economic chaos in Europe? How much could Israel raise the price of crude without actually getting themselves into a war? Their claims that Iran was building an atomic bomb were getting tiresome. The world would eventually wake up and realize that Iran was complying to the letter with the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons treaty and that it was only because of the action of Western countries that Iran backed away from giving even greater transparency than the treaty required.

The intercom on his desk phone rang. Andrew put it on speaker. It was Tim. "Would you please come into my office for a few minutes?"

When Andrew got there, another man Andrew didn't know was sitting there idly sipping a Perrier and taking notes on an iPad. There was something about him that shouted "Lawyer." Perhaps it was the well tailored power charcoal shadowstripe suit. Perhaps it was the look in his eye. Despite his having a thin face and an effeminate manner, he was a carrion eater. Tim sat, slump backed and exhausted looking as he tugged at the collar of his shirt and scratched his neck. Whatever it was, Tim was clearly nervous and that Andrew nervous too. "Have a drink," Tim said.

He was going to be fired, Andrew knew. He didn't know for what yet but he could feel it. "No," Andrew said, waving it away and shaking his head. "It is definitely too early."

Tim put the glass down for the moment but said "No, you are going to want it and you'll want the bottle handy."

As Andrew stat he quickly reviewed again his available assets. He could feel it coming.

"Andrew, this is Edwin Newman from Berkman, Bottger, Newman & Rodd. He is an attorney. We'll get into why he is here later. Any relationship has to be based on trust, and that includes a working relationship. Information must be both factual and complete."

"When have I not given you the truth and the whole truth?"

"Not you, me. Two days ago I withheld information I knew you would want to know. Today I will tell you everything I knew then plus what I have just learned since. Siobhan is alive. She had twin girls in Columbia University hospital a week and a half ago under the name of Rebecca Sheldrake." He handed a piece of paper at Andrew. "You're not the father."

"The physical, the genetic marker test?"

"A poor excuse to get the needed sample."

"I'll take the drink now."

Tim poured a Scotch and handed it to Andrew. "As a trivia note, Henry isn't the father either. And it just gets worse from there. Siobhan is wanted for murder. Two counts of murder in the first degree and one count of hiring someone to commit murder, my daughter Gemma. The police have surveillance tape of her shooting a man named John Delario who had just killed Gemma. They have surveillance camera footage of her entering the apartment of a woman named Oksana Segalovich. Ms. Segalovich is the house maid from the Soho Diamond who said that she let Henry into Tyler Barret's room. The woman was found dead right after Siobhan left, poisoned. The hallway surveillance footage in the Soho Diamond showed that Henry entered the room of Tyler Barret, Tyler entered the room, Henry left and then Tyler was found dead. The best witness was Segalovich and the police believe Siobhan killed Segalovich to protect Henry."

Andrew began to laugh. "You had me going with the baby and I know you have good reason to hate her, but this is a sick joke."

"Yes, and the worst part of the joke is that it's all true." He handed Andrew a stack of file folders. "Those are the police reports. I can show you the surveillance video and the arrest warrants. It's all true."

"Why am I only hearing of this now?"

"Because the police thought Siobhan Martin had an air tight alibi for each of these crimes. They thought it was Bridget who did the killing. When they booked who they thought was Siobhan after she killed the guy in your apartment they found out that she is Bridget and had been hiding in your bed for seven months and the woman they had been tracking and thought was her crazy killer junkie sister was really Siobhan."

"Why didn't you tell me this on Wednesday?"

"I didn't believe it myself. But it was too important not to check. Then once I did find out she'd had the twins I needed to be able to tell you one way or the other if you're the father."

"Who told you all this?"

"Lots of people, mainly my contacts at the police. But the one who gave me the initial information was Bridget Kelly. She came here Wednesday morning. I was going to have security remove her but then she pulled out a Wyoming driver's license for Bridget Kelly and gave me a list of police detectives, case numbers and an FBI agent's number. It all checked out, and she didn't even know the half of it."

Andrew finished the Scotch in one mouth searing gulp and then held the glass out to Tim to fill again.

"You need to divorce her as soon as possible, starting today. Imagine the embarrassment for the firm if it got out that your wife was doing all this. It will be bad enough when word comes out that it was your ex wife. But it won't be hard to get a divorce. Adultery is the two safest charges to bring. I want to keep her stealing from the company out of it for now."

"Stealing from the company?"

"She transferred money to her accounts. About a million dollars. "

Andrew winced. "I must have left the password in my browser history. I didn't think my own wife …"

"What she has done was inconceivable. But that's why I have Mr. Newman here. He is a divorce attorney. You need to divorce Siobhan, immediately."

Newman put down his iPad down and opened his Cartier brief case. "In New York, you can divorce someone without them being able to oppose it for the charges of adultery. Mr. Arbigast has provided evidence of the adultery including surveillance footage of the two de flagranto. The DNA tests also show that you are not the father of the twins and that is court admissible evidence as well. We can file papers today under the adultery charge." He pulled forms out of a Cartier brief case and then handed Andrew the forms and a pen.

Andrew took another drink, his hands shaking. In less than three days, his entire world had disintegrated. He began signing the forms.


	16. Murder By Google

Murder by Google

Sleeping in a hospital was impossible. The noise was constant. If they weren't taking your vitals or prodding you with needles every four hours around the clock they were prodding your room-mate across the little curtain every four hours and they timed it to be as obnoxious as possible. Siobhan figured she got no more than two hours of sleep at a stretch. Then of course there's the food. A sandwich, chips and a cookie in a little box.

She hated the bedpan. She wanted to try to go to the bathroom but the IV lines kept her tethered in place.

She did have time to think, lots of time to think. She put it to use.

She thought about the security cameras she saw in the place where she rented the storage locker. If there were cameras there, there probably were cameras where Gemma had been killed. It was a mistake to kill John DeLario there. The evidence probably was on camera.

She realized that if the police caught her she'd probably stand trial for DeLario's murder and would probably be convicted. She wasn't going to spend the rest of her life in prison no matter what.

Slowly, she came up with a plan. The one good thing about this hospital was that they had an internet connection and a mini-keyboard at each bed. It was enough to allow her to mail herself notes and plans.

She had to get out of the country. That was going to take money, a lot of it. She could think of two places to get it. One was from Andrew. She had tried robbing their place. Robbing her own home of her own jewelry. What an irony!

How had Bridget stepped in so neatly? She never would have expected that. How did she survive? Never matter - she would take care of that lingering problem.

Well there was one thing Bridget didn't have and that was two of Andrew's children. They had to be worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Andrew certainly had put far more than that in on Juliet.

There was one other source of money, Henry. She would mix business with pleasure on this one. He would be the easiest and quickest source of liquid assets and she would need the money to be able to complete the rest of her plans and make her escape.

She brooded over and hatched her plots with the greatest of care. She did research on Google and was even working on a detailed shopping list and exactly where to get it knowing just how little money she still had available.

And if her plans utterly collapsed she still had one exit strategy that definitely beat prison.


	17. Gone

Gone

"I quit," thundered a voice from the kitchen. "I quit." Bridget knew it came from Salvador, one of the cooks. She paused in her slicing of a customer's pastrami sandwich so she could crane her neck around and see what was causing the fuss.

"You can't just quit," replied Sam.

"I can and I just did." Salvador walked out of the kitchen, tearing off his apron and tossing it on the floor.

Sophie's eyes turned wide with horror. "It's Shabbos. We're stacked with orders to get out. We need you."

"Then you should have not said my cooking wasn't good enough to get the raise you promised me when I already found another job that pays more than you said you'd give me after the raise."

"Be sensible. Be logical," Moe said. "Even if you don't want to come back Monday you will some day want to use us as a reference. If you leave us stuck what do you think we will say?"

"I don't care" Salvador said, grinding his foot on his apron and tossing off his hair guard. "See how long your lousy deli stays open without my cooking." With that, he turned and walked out.

"Great," Sam said. "Where are we going to get a cook immediately? We have an order for catering a Vegan Shabbat Dinner for the Hillel House at NYU. Do you know how much borshch I need to make? I can't do it and all our other orders with just Jose and me."

Sophie turned to Bridget. You said you can make borshch."

Bridget nodded. "I can make you a Lenten Russian borscht." She kissed her fingertips, the way she knew a chef on TV did. "Wonderful, with mushroom dumplings. No meat, no dairy."

"Can you make enough for 200 by 4:00," Sam asked.

She thought for a moment. "No." She sighed. "I can't get all the beets boiled, peeled and cut into strings in time."

"Canned beets."

She shrugged. "If you want canned beet borscht, I can make you canned beet borscht. It's just so not the same."

Sam pulled Sophie aside. "We've never seen her make anything besides sandwiches. You want to put our name on the line?"

"You have an alternative? You want to feed them my borshch?"

"I don't want to be guilty of mass murder." He looked around, thinking for a way out. There wasn't one. He turned to Bridget. "Alright. You're promoted."

The patrons in the restaurant clapped as Bridget stepped from behind the sandwich counter.

Andrew looked into Steinberg's Deli through curtain of salamis. He saw her. It had both of them, Siobhan and Bridget, yet not either of them, calmly making sandwiches. He watched as the chef stormed out and she went back into the kitchen.

He understood his orders from Tim. He knew what he had to do. Yet he was dreading it.

He walked in and stepped up to the woman who seemed to be in charge of everything. "Excuse me. I need to speak with Bridget Kelly."

Sophie looked him up and down, seeing that uncomfortable, guilty look on his face and suddenly knowing exactly who he had to be. "Bridget," she called into the kitchen. He looked interestingly rich in that suit, not like what she had imagined someone who went to 7:00 Thursday night meetings would land at all. She would have to get more details later.

Bridget had been scaling up the recipe she knew for that many people. She came out with the paper and pencil still in hand. "Oh my God." She looked around, eyes in shock, not knowing what to say, her lips trembling, looking again to make sure what she saw was real.

"I need to speak with you," Andrew said.

Sophie tapped her on the shoulder, nodding approval and watching every move with curiosity. Bridget stepped out from behind the counter and followed Andrew to an empty table and stumbled into a chair.

"I am divorcing Siobhan," Andrew said quietly. "I don't know anything beyond that but I have already filed the papers."

Bridget nodded, not sure what to say.

"I am filing just for adultery for now."

"Siobhan has done a whole lot worse than adultery."

"I know, but I don't want the firm damaged by the scandal. I may need you to testify if Siobhan tries to claim I committed adultery."

Bridget thought for a minute. What would the lawyers say? Had he? She smiled. It was a complex question. "Of course."

"I'm not the father of her babies," Andrew said.

"Babies?"

"Identical twin girls."

"And they're Henry's?"

Andrew shook his head. By now he wasn't even sure if she knew.

Oh great, Bridget thought. Twins. They run in families. Like mother, like daughter and like sister. She cast a glance down at her stomach. She knew where that one sure had come from, and in another six months so would he. Would there be another pair of identical twin girls?

Six months until the big arrival. Right about when the divorce would be settled. If only there were some way to prove it before then. Should she tell him? She took his hand. "I have a lot I need to tell you."

"Tim Arbogast briefed me about Siobhan."

"She's crazy. Even crazier than Catherine. Do you know what she's done?"

"Even more than you do."

Right there at that minute, Fate cursed her. The absolute worst thing possible happened. A woman sat down at the table next to her with Gefilte fish. The stench wafted over. Waves and waves of it blew right into Bridget's nose. "I have to use the bathroom," she said suddenly, making a sudden rush for the rear of the deli. "Stay right there." She barely made it in before spilling what little she had been able to eat.

While Bridget was puking her guts out, Andrew's phone beeped. It was a text from Juliet. "In big trouble at school. Plz come now!" He knew he should stay and talk but he wasn't ready to take it yet. Juliet's emergency came almost as a welcome relief.

By the time Bridget came out, Andrew was gone. She looked around for him but he was nowhere to be seen. Sophie turned to her. "He said he had a sudden emergency and he would text you later."

Bridget laughed. "Text me? How utterly romantic."

As she picked up her paper and pencil and went back into the kitchen, a wave of despair and frustration began to overcome her. He had been here and now he was gone without even waiting to say goodbye.


	18. Change

Change

Andrew was truly dreading this. He had made a horrible fool of himself with Juliet's attempt with Catherine to defraud him of millions. He had really wanted to avoid ever seeing Ms. Caruso ever again. He looked through the glass of her office and she smiled smugly back.

Juliet sat at one end of Ms. Caruso's office and a boy about her age sat at the other. He could see the look of utter rage within him. His skinny, brown arms looked ready to leap forward and slash her. Daggers sprang from his dark brown eyes. Someone who didn't know might take him for some Mexican or Puerto Rican roughneck but Andrew knew better. Andrew knew the type from the distinctive metal bracelet, long wispy beard and hat that doubtless hid a long queue of dark hair. He was a Sikh and a believer. Natural born soldiers every one.

Andrew knocked on the door. "Enter," came Ms. Caruso's voice. She extended her hand. "Ah, Mr. Martin. What a pleasure to see you again." She looked more relaxed, no doubt because this time she had the upper hand. "Would you care to sit down?"

Andrew knew that it was a commandment, not a question. He sat next to Juliet. She looked utterly humiliated. "Ms. Caruso, I got a text from my daughter saying to come instantly. That is not something Juliet has ever said. What is this all about?"

The Sikh stood up. "You want me to tell you? I'll tell you."

Ms. Caruso raised a hand. "Calm down Sarbjhit."

"Actually, I would like him to explain his side of what happened."

"This is Sarbjhit Singh. Juliet and Sarbjhit are both in Mr. Corrigan's trigonometry and geometry class. There was a rather unsavory incident today, although not utterly unexpected given Juliet's previous issues. Sarbjhit, please tell us what you told Mr. Corrigan."

Sarbjhit sat. "We were doing a midterm on proofs. I had worked hard for my A in this class."

"No editorializing. Just the facts."

"I was doing a proof on whether or not two triangles were congruent. It was one of the easy intro questions so I do those first. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that whenever I wrote something on the proof it was on her paper. There are so many ways to prove the same thing and her answer looked like mine. The next one was a quadrilateral midpoint and because I knew she was a cheat I put down crazy nonsense on my paper and then there it was on her exam." He pointed at Juliet. "She cheated."

He looked at Ms. Caruso. "What does the evidence say?"

She shook her head. "Sarbjhit is a straight A student in all his classes. I wish the whole school was filled with students like him." She left unspoken that the last thing she wanted was a school filled with Juliet Martins. She turned to Sarbjhit. "That will be all. You may return to class now."

Sarbjhit had a "You mean I don't get to find out what you will do to her" look on his face, but said "Yes, Principal Caruso." Before he left, he turned to Andrew and said "I get my grades by honest, hard work. I want to be a doctor."

Andrew nodded. "And I am sure you will be. Good luck."

After the door closed and the three of them were alone, Ms. Caruso turned to Andrew. "This school has a zero tolerance policy on cheating. The first time doesn't go on the student's permanent record but they receive an F in the exam and their earlier work is reviewed for evidence of cheating. If they are caught cheating again, they receive an F in the class for the entire semester, it goes on their permanent record and there is a much more rigorous parent-teacher conference than this informal one and the student is suspended for two days. Upon the third offense, we go up the line and request expulsion of the student."

Juliet shrank into her chair. Andrew nodded. "That is very understandable, Ms. Caruso. But please be assured there will be no repeat of it, at least not this semester."

"How do you know?"

"Because I am withdrawing her from your school. Effective immediately."

Juliet stood, horrified. "Daddy, you can't." Her lips quivered and she began to cry. "I am sorry. I made a mistake. I didn't want to disappoint you any more and I know it was wrong and I promise I'll never, ever do it again."

"That is good. But the decision must stand. I will complete any necessary forms. Solomon will help you empty your locker of any personal effects and I will have him return any books."

Principal Caruso looked at Andrew sternly. "Mr. Martin, even given Juliet's ... history ... this is definitely excessive."

"I am sorry, but I have my reasons and as her father that decision stands."

"Please, Mr. Martin. Discuss this with her mother before making any instant decisions."

Andrew pictured himself going down to the Tombs to visit Catherine and discuss taking Juliet out of school and began to laugh out loud. "No, I will not. As the parent with sole custody this decision will stand."

As Solomon put a box into the trunk of the car and Andrew led her in, Juliet shrieked "You can't do this. You're ruining my whole life! Please, please." She turned to Solomon. "Please talk some sense into him. This is insane. I'm sorry but taking me out of school?"

Solomon closed the trunk and unlocked the limo. "Actually, it was my idea."

"Your idea?"

Solomon nodded.

Andrew opened the rear door. "Get in the car, Juliet. I will explain everything, in the car."

Solomon pulled the car out of the school parking lot. "Listen to your father, and remember that everything he is going to tell you is the truth."

Andrew took several photographs out of his briefcase and gave them to Juliet. She looked at them, unable to believe what she was seeing. "These are surveillance camera pictures of Siobhan murdering a man named John DeLario."

"What?" She looked at them, shaking her head. "This can't be. She was a catty, lying bitch, but ..."

He pulled out more pictures. "DeLario murdered Gemma Butler. A little while later Siobhan shot him. The police think Siobhan paid DeLario to kidnap and then murder Gemma to eliminate any competition from her over Henry Butler and then she killed DeLario to cover up the crime. Even if she didn't intend for DeLario to kill Gemma, she's still guilty of what's called Felony Murder for Gemma because she was involved in a felony in which Gemma died."

"She wouldn't ... kill someone ... for him? Maybe hop in the sack with him, but murder for him? ... And wait a minute. Didn't Bridget say Siobhan was dead?"

Andrew shook his head. "She thought Siobhan was dead. Now we know Siobhan faked her suicide to run away with Henry Butler." He pulled more pictures out of the brief case and offered them to Juliet. "Some of these are very bloody. She has murdered three times and Henry Butler murdered once. If you like I will take you through every detail, picture by picture."

She shook her head. "OK, so let's say Siobhan is really super evil and needs to be thrown in jail with Mom. Why pull me out of school and punish me?"

Solomon turned his head. "For your own protection."

"What?"

Andrew put away the photos and handed her a photocopy of a birth certificate. "Siobhan had two twin girls. That's the pregnancy that Bridget was told about seven months ago."

"I see Henry's name but not hers."

"You'll see a lot of names for her. Apparently she's had quite a list of aliases and also a number of lovers. The babies aren't Henry's and they aren't mine. I have already filed for divorce."

"Alright! Can I make a dart board out of that picture? Oh please?"

Andrew paused for a moment and smiled. "I had really wanted to burn it. It would be a little like watching her burn in Hell, but for you ..."

"Oh thank you, Daddy!"

Andrew's face turned darkly serious again. "When Siobhan finds out that the babies aren't mine and that I am divorcing her, she will seek revenge. She has killed three times before and already has several warrants for her arrest. She has nothing to lose. She will serve two sentences of life imprisonment just for Gemma and John DeLario's death and she must know that by now. I'm afraid she will take out her revenge on me by killing the person I care most about in the world, you. That is why I'm sending you to stay with a cousin of mine in New Zealand."

"New Zealand? That's like freaking nowhere on the other side of the whole planet!"

"Exactly. You have a flight this afternoon out of JFK."

"This afternoon? You can't!"

"Juliet, this is for your own safety. As soon as the police catch her I'll fly you right back."

She looked straight into Andrew's eyes and spoke with all the strength she could muster. "Take me to see Bridget first."

"What?"

"Take me to see Bridget."

"Why would you think I even know where she is?"

She turned to Solomon. "Steinberg's Deli in the East Village. Avenue B and East 4th."

"We don't have time. You haven't packed."

"You will just put a lot of money on my charge card so I can buy all new clothes there. I want to see Bridget before I go."

Andrew nodded. "Back to the Deli."

"Good," Solomon said, hitting the turn signals. "I'm hungry."

Bridget was bailing 30 quarts of water into a gigantic pot to simmer the mushrooms. She had already finished the shopping at the Chinese market down the street. They actually had exactly what she needed, just the right mushrooms and even fresh kohlrabi. She turned to Sam. "You and Jose are going to have to do some parts. This pot is going to be too much for me to handle."

"Don't worry," Sam said as he prepared a rack of Sabbath dinner chickens. "Just give us a little warning."

It was hot in the kitchen, boiling hot. She drank a glass of water and could feel the perspiration pouring down her. Then she pulled the steaming hot meat grinder and food processor out of the Hobart machine. She promised a Vegan Borsht. She had to remove any remaining meat traces she could.

She peeled and rough cut two dozen onions and then ran them through the food processor to finely chop them. Then she fried them up in a large wok and drank more water to keep from being utterly dehydrated. Before she could get the other vegetables ready she Sophie's voice. "Bridget, come out here."

Andrew and Juliet were standing by Sophie's cash register. Juliet ran on over, her arms out and hugged Bridget. Then she sniffed. "You smell like ... "

"Onions. I'm sorry, sweetie. They have me cooking. I must look quite the horrid sight."

"I had to see you. Andrew is sending me to New Zealand and I can't talk him out of it."

Bridget saw the glare flash in Andrew's eyes, one that said "Don't argue with my authority." She nodded. "That's probably very wise."

"You don't actually think Siobhan would ..."

"Without a doubt." She took Juliet to a table and sat her down. "She is crazy. I found the meds her doctor had prescribed for her and I read her file at her psychiatrist. She is suffering from acute psychosis and is not in this world."

Andrew relaxed a little as he sat down with them. At least Bridget wasn't playing any back stabbing games. "I'm sorry for leaving so quickly this morning. Juliet was caught cheating on an exam at school."

Bridget winced. "You didn't!"

"Sorry." She shrank back in her chair. "I ... I promise never again."

Bridget turned to Andrew, taking his hand again. "We still need to talk, very much. How much time do you have?"

"When Solomon comes back with Juliet's clothes we will go directly to the airport."

Bridget knew they would only have a few minutes. She also wasn't sure he would want Juliet to watch the look on his face as he found out. Andrew always did prefer to spend the time pondering how he actually felt. Besides, she wasn't even sure yet. "Tomorrow," she said.

"I have meetings. Sunday."

"I will hold you to that. You don't want a woman smelling like a giant onion showing up for you at Martin Charles on Monday."

He smiled and nodded. She had made her point. It would be best to handle her off site.

Moe brought over a bag. "Avocado on whole wheat with sprouts and a carrot juice."

Juliet was shocked. "Have you finally started eating something that's healthy?"

"It's not for me. It's for Solomon." He handed Moe a twenty dollar bill. "Keep the change."


	19. Fool Me Once

Fool Me Once

As Solomon drove Andrew back from JFK along the Long Island Expressway, he couldn't help but feel very sorry for him. He looked so small and alone in the back of the limo. His face was dark and silent.

He couldn't imagine his life without his family always there. They drove him nuts so many times but they were the center of his life. He could always find warmth and love at home and he could always give it. Andrew's whole family was gone. He didn't even have a dog.

Solomon turned on the news. WCBS radio had a piece about how women were the most likely victim of homicide and it usually happened from someone they knew. It was uncomfortably accurate.

He slowed through the EZ Pass and went into the yellow light of the tunnel. "What would you like to do now, Boss?"

"Back to the Soho Diamond. Then home."

"You ... maybe you would like to stay at our place tonight. Get a home cooked meal."

Andrew sat silently as they exited the tunnel. "No," he finally answered. "There is food at home."

Solomon turned down 34th Street and then turned onto Park Avenue. They drove right past the apartment. He wondered what it would be like upstairs. "They say it's going to rain tomorrow and we'll get a North Easter on Sunday."

"It fits."

"We need the rain."

It didn't take long to gather Andrew's possessions from the hotel room and get back in the car. Soon they were in front of 626 Park Avenue. Andrew took his bags. "I can carry it from here. Go home to your family."

"Will you need me this weekend?"

Andrew shook his head. "I'll take a cab into the office."

"I'm here for you, day or night."

They had cleaned the lobby at least. Tim the night doorman had been promoted to day shift apparently, and he had been joined by a uniformed security guard with a can of mace and a night stick. "Would you like some help with that, Mr. Martin?"

"I'm fine."

The elevator had been repaired. That was good news. Soon he was in his home. It had that freshly painted stink. They had done a good job though.

That picture was gone from the frame and there was no trace of it. He supposed the crime scene cleaners had disposed of it.

He dumped the bags down and went to raid the fridge. Bowls of the party food from Tuesday night had been neatly covered with plastic and put away. He paid for it. He may as well eat it. He tried the tray of zakuski, ignoring the salad and settling into caviar on bread and then canapé like bread and cheese things with tomato slices. Quite good, even though it was three days old.

With some food in his stomach, he went through his bags. His suits looked wrinkled. He would need to get them cleaned. He went through the pockets as he always did before having them cleaned. He found a note in one. It was the poem Marriage Song by Yehudah HaLevi. He had wanted to use it in his vows to her. His eyes skipped to the last two verses.

"This is a lonely lover!  
Come, fair one, to his side,  
That happy be together  
The bridegroom and the bride!

The hour of love approaches  
That shall make one of twain:  
Soon may be thus united  
All Israel's hosts again!"

That had just been Monday night he had read it to her. Siobhan, Bridget, whoever it was. He had meant every word. He began to cry. He could not help it. He had held it together all week and now he could not. Everything in his life he really cared about was gone. He had sent his daughter away because he was afraid the wife he thought he loved deeply would going to kill her.

Had he loved Siobhan? Eight months ago, he had been seriously considering a divorce. He couldn't take her bitchiness and fighting or her joylessness, her constantly belittling him or her utterly self centered ways. He went away for a month for business and to consider whether he wanted to stay away and had flown back from London having already decided that he would need to leave her to maintain his sanity. But when he returned everything that had driven him away was suddenly gone. Instead of her bizarre bouts of strange anger punctuating the constant selfishness and ungratefulness she was relaxed and joyful.

Looking back on it, he should have had her fingerprints checked when he learned Siobhan had a twin. He should have guessed then that someone else had replaced Siobhan. The change was too good to be true.

She said she was going to tell him something that night, tell them something. Was she actually going to confess to being an imposter? Perhaps. What would he have felt if she had? Would he have thrown her out? He wondered, leaving the suits behind and returning for the comfort of more food.

That woman he saw today was not Siobhan. She didn't look like her. She didn't move like her or talk like her. It was as if a switch had been thrown and suddenly she had given up on playing the part and had reverted to being a plebian.

Perhaps she had. Perhaps he met her for the first time today.

He suddenly wondered why he had married Siobhan in the first place and as he popped a deviled egg in his mouth he knew it was for the sex. Why had he married Catherine? The sex. And Juliet.

He had to admit, Bridget was absolutely the best lay he ever had in his life, bar none. She should have been as a hooker though. Damn she was good. She even made him think she really wanted it. He supposed it was all in their training. He wondered if there was a "Hooker's University" somewhere. Did they have Oral Sex 101? The image made him chuckle.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." That was a saying he had learned as a child from his Father. He thought Father had learned it on Star Trek. Catherine had fooled him. Siobhan had fooled him. He could not get the sight of Catherine out of his mind, first bleeding on him and then with a gun on him. He should have just held her, just long enough for her to die, before calling the ambulance. He saved her life and then she repaid it by threatening to kill him and worst of all to kill Juliet. He kept seeing the videos of Siobhan killing that man, over and over from each different angle.

He had married two murderers. What were the odds of that? What was wrong with him that he could find two different women who were running around with guns to kill people? With his track record, how did he know that he wouldn't end up with number three?

He had to flush any idea of any romance or relationships out of his head. He couldn't risk having yet a third crazy wife endanger Juliet.


	20. Prodigal Daughter

Prodigal Daughter

"It's good," Sam said, having a spoon full of Bridget's borsht. "Different with the mushrooms but good."

They sat at a table. Moe was closing the business early closing early for Shabbos. Sophie was counting the cash for the day and going over the credit card statements on her laptop. Bridget had made herself a sandwich. She'd tasted the borsht enough while making it. "I also know a good bean recipe and a cabbage recipe but they take longer. If I had more notice I could do those."

"I'll remember that. I like the little mushroom dumplings."

"When you make it for Christmas you make it with a few of the dumplings filled with pepper corns. It's considered lucky for whoever gets them."

Sam's eyes widened. "Did you ..."

Bridget smiled. "No. I wouldn't do that without your approval."

Moe sat down with a bowl in hand. "It is good. It takes me back to what our mother made us when we were children."

Sophie keyed numbers into her computer. "I think we lost money on it with the cost of those mushrooms."

Sam rubbed her back. "But we got through our cook quitting and I'm sure we'll get repeat business. You can't make a profit every day." He turned to Bridget. "So do you want to move on up into the kitchen."

Bridget took another bite and thought about it. "I'm willing to help but I couldn't do it full time. Not in my condition."

Sam took another sip. "What condition? You were great in the kitchen. Real authentic old country taste."

Bridget and Sophie rolled their eyes and looked at each other knowingly. Finally Sophie answered. "She's pregnant." She stood and went to the register. "That reminds me. Here is a fresh new metro pass with $50 on it. I want you to make yourself a lunch to take with and take a bottle of water. Those free clinic places have very long waits and you need to keep your strength up."

"I will."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"So the Englishman who came twice for you today ... he's the father?"

"Welsh. And yes he's the father."

"And the girl?"

"His, not mine by blood. But I love her like a daughter." She finished her sandwich. "Would you mind if I went upstairs and washed up. I'm going someplace this evening for a bit."

"Where?"

Bridget shrugged. "To confession."

Sophie nodded. "Go. Go. Say hello to Bishop Fitzgerald for us and ask him what he wants for his bagel order next week."

"Thank you. I don't want to go smelling like an onion."

Sam lifted a finger to correct her. "Onions are nothing to be ashamed of. They are a beautiful thing and your cooking with then was honorable."

Moe looked at her, finishing his bowl. "Could you do a few little favors for me? It won't take long. Turning off lights, turning off the Hobart machine. Things like that."

Bridget smiled. "Of course. I'll be your Shabbat goy."

"Wonderful. The universe is happy. I'll tape the list on your door."

After washing up and changing, Bridget went downstairs. The whole family was just leaving. From the aroma, Bridget knew Sam had one of his chickens and all the fixings packed. Sophie smiled as she locked the door behind them. "I married him for his cooking."

She walked around the block past the Ethiopian restaurant to the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer. It was one of those marvelous classic cathedral looking stuffy old churches with a bell tower that rose above the brick buildings. It was huge inside and was truly awe inspiring with its grand white pillars, high arched ceilings and old style paintings of Christ and the apostles. She knelt before the altar and prayed before looking for the confessional booths.

She could hear breathing in one. It seemed to be the only one with a priest in it. She entered and knelt before the screen. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was ... " Bridget paused. "I am not sure. Maybe six years ago, maybe five."

The voice that came from the screen was not the one she had expected. It was from an older man with a deeper voice and a Bronx accent. "Tell me what troubles your heart, my child."

"I made the appointment with a different priest. I don't want to inconvenience you with a long confession."

"The Holy Spirit whispered to Father Padilla that he should make the appointment for me."

"This is hard for me. I always hated talking at the screen like this. It's so hard to put everything together."

"Would you prefer to come into my office?"

"Very much so."

She heard the creak of the confessional door so she exited. "That's better," said the priest. "Those little confessionals aren't good for my old knees." Bridget stepped out and saw that he was a tall man, perhaps a foot taller than she was, with thinning white hair, wire rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed short beard. "This way."

She followed him up an elegant marble set of steps and into a more run down office area. His office was overflowing with books and file cabinets. He hung a "Do Not Disturb - In Confession" sign on the door and then sat down behind a large wooden desk that looked like it dated at the very least to prohibition. "Sit," he said. "Anywhere. In a chair, on the couch."

She sat on the couch. "Thank you."

"Would you like to take your shoes off and lie back and relax?"

It was a bit unusual she thought, but it would feel so good. "Thank you. I've been working on my feet all day."

"Are you nervous?"

She nodded.

"Is it because you are embarrassed?"

"Yes."

"Remember, I am not the one hearing your confession. Christ is here in the room with us. He was there when you did the sins and he is here now as you begin the path to set them right. I am here to help you. It has been some years since your last confession so I want you to think of me as a doctor. I am the doctor of your soul. I am here to help you find healing of your soul and to regain the Grace of God. It is time for the examination of your conscience. Where have you gone astray?"

As she reclined on the couch she winced. "I don't know where to start. So many ways."

"Start with the worst part, the sin as black as night, the one that you have hidden away for these years even from yourself because you couldn't stand to look at it. God knows what it is already."

She knew what it was. She didn't want to say it, but the tears came welling up from where she had hidden them for years. "I murdered my baby."

"How?"

"Inside me. I had an abortion. About five years ago."

"What did the father say?"

She shrugged, grabbing a tissue from a conveniently placed box of Kirkland brand generic Kleenex. "I have no idea who the father was. I was working at a titty bar right off the strip in Vegas. Not quite a prostitute but ... The boss paid for me to go someplace to get it 'taken care of.'"

"You were a stripper?"

"I've been it all. Stripper, hooker, topless dancer, pole dancer, lap dancer."

"You know that abortion is a very serious sin. A regular priest can't even give forgiveness for it. It has to be a Bishop."

She sat up. "I can come back."

He held his hand out for her to stop. "I am the Bishop. The spirit told Father Padilla already. God really does know all your sins."

She lay back down. "You must be Bishop Fitzgerald. The Steinbergs said hello and asked about your bagel order for next week."

He wrote out a post-it note and handed it to her. "Two dozen egg bagels, garlic and onion and some lox on the side to be delivered Tuesday morning. The Archbishop is coming for an important meeting. And tell them thank you very much. They're such good people. If they were only Catholic then they'd be saints. But back to you. Abortion is a very serious sin. You are taking a life. It may now be legal in our sick country but before God it is just another form of homicide."

"I've done that too."

His eyes widened but he kept silent. He had learned not to judge quickly.

"Officially ruled justifiable homicide by the police and the FBI. He was trying to kill me." She sighed deeply. "My sins don't stop there. I have been a liar and a cheat and a junkie and a pusher. But I have to clean up my life. I think I'm pregnant again."

"Does he know?"

"Tomorrow I will have the test. I want to be absolutely sure. He promised we'd meet Sunday. I will tell him then."

"Do you love him?"

"With all my heart. More than anybody I have ever loved in my whole life. More than my own life."

"And him?"

"He threw me out a few days ago. He found out I wasn't the fair dove he thought I was."

"Does he have money?"

She nodded. "A lot. We were living high on Park Avenue."

"As a priest you hear a lot of confessions, and you learn a lot of people's private lives. After enough decades of it you learn some practical wisdom. In the State of New York, typically child support starts from the moment of birth and goes until the child is 21 but if you file against him now you may well get the money held in abeyance, basically paid retroactively back to when you file for it when the child is born. There is a formula for how much you would get but in the upper incomes it is about fourteen percent of his income. The life within you deserves a chance to grow and enter this world. We can help you to be able to do that.

"I don't think he'll deadbeat dad on me. I don't think his daughter would let him."

"Good. You mentioned being a pusher ..."

"I've been clean for over a year."

"Good. What else have you done since your last confession? What was the worst sin?"

She thought. "I spent years trying to not be able to think. I went from one blackout or high to another, always stoned or loaded or something. The things I remember doing were disgusting enough but what about all the things I don't remember? I am afraid."

"Will you ever repeat those sins?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Do not be troubled, my child. Jesus has already seen those sins too. What else is troubling you?"

She smiled. "I doubt if you would believe it."

"Tell me. I've heard it all."

"I have a twin sister. She is married to Andrew. I came to visit her from Wyoming because I was trying to get away from a man who wanted to kill me because I saw him murder my room-mate. Siobhan faked jumping off a boat and committing suicide when I was there so I thought she was dead. I took her place because I thought she was dead and I didn't want to get murdered."

"Go on."

"I lived for seven months with Andrew pretending to be Siobhan. I slept with her husband. I lied to everyone about everything. I didn't want to harm them. I needed a place and then ... I felt sorry for them and I fell in love with them. That's why Andrew kicked me out."

He nodded. "And your sister?"

"She's wanted by the police for murder. She is insane and set me up knowing just what I'd do."

"My, that does all sound a bit like a bad soap opera. I have to admit, the twin sister part is a bit unique. The fake suicide and the sleeping with your murdering sister's husband part, I've had all of that before."

Her eyes grew wide with astonishment. "You have?"

He laughed. "You don't spend 40 years in the sin game without seeing a whole lot of reruns." He looked at her. "So, do you feel you have made a full and honest confession of your sins?"

She nodded. "What I can remember of it."

"Are you contrite? Are you sorrowful for your sins?"

"Oh God yes!" Her hand darted to her lips. "Excuse me, please."

"Confession is sometimes referred to as the baptism of tears. Its purpose is to heal and purify. Do you understand that."

Her brow wrinkled. "I think so."

"Penance isn't a punishment. It's purpose is to help the penitent to be closer to Jesus, and to show to others the love and compassion of Jesus. It is part of the healing that the sacrament brings. I can absolve you of your sins. That takes away the sin but it doesn't remedy the disorders the sin has caused in your life. Like a doctor prescribes a medicine to help a patient recover, we prescribe penance to help a sinner recover and make full amends for the past. Do you understand that?"

She nodded.

"For the sin of your lost years in substance abuse and the sins of unchastity, I give you the penance of 50 weeks of acts of service with the Narcotics Anonymous group Father Padilla saw you in. Become a leader there. Help the other women to find the light. Become a sponsor and share your light. For the sin of your abortion, your penance is to speak to a meeting of young women of what your experience was as someone who had an abortion. I will arrange the meeting."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"Would you want anyone to go through your suffering?"

Her eyes burst forth with tears. "No."

"Then if you won't save them then who will?"

She thought. "Yes, Father. I will do it."

"Before I absolve you, you need to understand that you aren't alone. Jesus who died for the very sins you confessed here tonight loves you and stands with you, ready to hold his arms around you. There are people here who will help you in both spiritual and practical ways."

"Yes, Father."

He got out of his arm chair and knelt on the floor. "Come, kneel with me," he said and Bridget obeyed.

"God the Father of mercies,

through the death and resurrection of his Son

has reconciled the world to himself

and sent the Holy Spirit among us

for the forgiveness of sins;

through the ministry of the Church

may God give you pardon and peace,

and I absolve you from your sins

in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit."

He looked right into Bridget's eyes. "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good" before returning to the prayers.

"May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the saints,

whatever good you do and suffering you endure,

heal your sins,

help you to grow in holiness,

and reward you with eternal life."


	21. Pussy Whipped

Pussy Whipped

The alarm company came to repair the system on Saturday morning. Not that it had done any good the last time. As he signed the bill to pay for the repairs, he wondered why he bothered. It hadn't stopped Siobhan or Macawi the last time. Would it stop Siobhan this time?

The police report said they found fresh fingerprints for Siobhan on Tuesday. She had been there, probably Monday night. The police said it looked like she had entered to steal her jewelry and any other valuable around the house. After all, she knew her own home. That would be bad enough but Andrew knew that the next time she might be coming to kill him.

"When seconds count, the police are always minutes away," a cracker of a client had said to him once. He had laughed then, just another gun toting Texas NRA goon. Now he wasn't so sure. For the first time in his life, Andrew seriously considered getting a gun. He even considered it long enough to look up the long chain of paperwork required on the New York City government web site before rejecting the idea again. He looked up stun guns and they were restricted too. The only thing that would be legal for him to purchase without volumes of time consuming paperwork, photographs, finger prints, background checks and a medical and psychiatric exam was pepper spray. He knew he had seen cans of it in the pharmacy but wondered if it was worth the bother. He had read how often an attacker would just keep on coming. He even briefly considered getting a guard dog, but knew any beast that would do the job would be far more than he could handle.

Perhaps he should have taken up Solomon's offer to stay at their place.

Where was Siobhan? Why hadn't the police caught her? He knew the answer. She could be anywhere. He knew she had been in Paris with Tyler Barrett. She could have slipped out of the country again, waiting to slip back in with a new identity and to strike. She had the money, thanks to her larceny of his company and personal assets.

He walked up and down the length of his home office. This isn't what he needed now. He needed to be checking the economic forecast of Spain and Italy. Would they need a bailout? When would they hit meltdown? Would the ever feisty Greek citizens reject the bailout package's harsh terms? It was maddening. The numbers he could get from the news services were too close to call this far ahead of the election.

Everyone knew that U.S. companies send 22 percent of the goods they export to Europe and have more than $2 trillion invested in factories, offices and businesses there. If the European economy collapsed, where would those exports go? Where would the American jobs go? Where would Americans get the money to feed their Chevy Suburbans and their other beloved gas guzzlers?

He could feel it. The price at $103/barrel had to be near the peak. It might rise a bit more but it would soon drop far lower. It had to be right. The odds of bad economic news was just too high. May was also the high month for crude prices last year and was close to the high in 2010. The numbers were too sound.

He didn't think that his investors would make more than ten percent but ten percent in this economy in three months was still enough to keep Martin Charles in the big leagues and to keep one Andrew Martin in good stead.

He opened the fridge and looked at the party leftovers again. He had some but with far less gusto than last night.

He sent an encrypted e-mail to Tim with the recommendation for the fund and with a detailed report breaking down his information along with a spreadsheet containing his financial model. He couldn't just make a recommendation for the company anymore. He had to get it personally approved by Tim. He hated it. He hated being under anyone's thumb.

The sky was darkening and it was beginning to rain, no doubt the beginnings of Solomon's promised North Easter.

If only he had refused Siobhan's plan to move into that stupid loft. The money she wasted there, knowing that she was going to leave soon anyway. Maybe it was just a cover but she blew his reserve. He and Olivia might even have been able to pull the firm out without the Ponzi scheme if they had worked together and Siobhan hadn't convinced him to refurbish and move into that ridiculously huge penthouse loft. But no, he listened to Siobhan about the loft to try to make her happy and then covered up that stupidity by letting Olivia convince him to use the money from new investors to pay back the old ones.

As he bought his own 60 day put option on Arabian light sweet crude, the words "Pussy whipped" burst from inside him. He shouted them at the walls of his empty apartment over and over. He knew that's what he was - royally pussy whipped. He counted the ways. First Catherine, then Siobhan, then his own dear Juliet, then Olivia and finally Bridget. "Pussy whipped."

Catherine, Olivia and Siobhan had been at the center of the destruction of his life. The three puppeteers pulling his strings in opposite directions. He just wanted to destroy, to punch something. He even knew what. It was a photo of Siobhan on his desk. He threw the picture at the wall on the opposite side of the room, shattering it into a thousand pieces as he resolved that he would never allow himself to be pussy whipped again.

Yet somehow Andrew didn't feel better. Now he would have to clean up the mess.


	22. Yours

Yours

Bridget was polishing the glass on the deli counter when Sam, Sophie and Moe came in, leaving little puddles of water wherever they stepped before they stowed away their raincoats, overshoes and umbrellas. She waved to them as she worked the counter into a perfect mirror shine. "Hi, how was your Sabbath?"

"Wonderful," Sam said. "The Sabbath is an island in time."

Sophie smiled. "And the chicken was good too."

Moe admired the deli counter, straightening his shirt and tie in it. "Any problems with that little list?"

Bridget shook her head. "All done, no problem. And I have the Bishop's bagel and lox order taped to your office door. Two dozen bagels and two pounds of Lox for the archbishop on Tuesday."

Sophie liked that. "Oh good, an excellent confession. So, I see you are out here. That means Minnie did a good job on the bathrooms Friday night?"

Bridget shook her head as she put the cleaning supplies away. "Nope. I figured you should see it for yourself to believe it."

Moe went in and inspected briefly before turning around. "Sophie, you have to see it to believe it. Just don't inhale in here too deep."

"That bad?"

Moe nodded, looking at Bridget. "I'll get someone new but for today ... "

Bridget shrugged. "I figured I'd do it."

Sophie looked at her with a concerned eye. "Are you sure in your condition?"

"I feel fine." She got the mop and the rest of the cleaning supplies from a closet in the back.

"So what did the doctor say yesterday?"

Bridget answered from the open door of the bathroom as she started with mopping down the floor. "Everything looks normal. I am about ten weeks along and my due date is around Thanksgiving."

Moe checked the men's room before starting his weekly inventory of everything. "Looks like more trouble."

"Great. Just great. I'll do it after I clean here."

Sam came out after starting the grills warming. "Your help is really appreciated. Let me make you my famous fried eggs, lox and latkes breakfast with apple sauce and chopped green onions and fresh ground pepper all on a bed of crispy green lettuce."

"I wish I could. My stomach is just beginning to get back to normal."

"You don't know what you're missing," Moe said. "It's so good."

Minnie smiled. "Oh I remember those days of even losing toast with my Bernie but still missing one of Sam's breakfasts is one of the greatest sacrifices you'll ever make in becoming a mother."

By the time she was done with the men's room, it was just past 9:00 and they were open for business. A few customers were straggling in and ordering hot soup and warm cocoa but it was mostly quiet. After scrubbing down thoroughly for food service Bridget made a few sandwiches and deli orders but mostly she just sat there and checked her phone over and over for any messages from Andrew.

She knew she should play it cool and not look like she was as desperate as she really felt. Yet she couldn't help it as she sent Andrew a quick text. "You promised we would meet today. We need to talk."

As Andrew's phone bleeped and he read the text, he looked outside. The weather looked nasty. He really didn't want to go out in it. Besides, he would take this on his own time, not hers. He was sick of women controlling him. He was going to take control. He sent back a text and then went back to watching drinking a beer and watching the World Snooker Championship on BBC 3. As always, the performance of the Essex Exocet, Ronnie O'Sullivan, was simply incredible. The speed and precision at which he potted the colored balls even on a very difficult table was nothing short of legendary.

A few minutes later, Bridget's pocket vibrated. She quickly read the text. "Busy. Can you tell me by text?"

She laughed. She would send him a message alright, but it would require Sophie to take a picture and for her to quickly do a quick photo edit on her phone.

As Ronnie had incredibly potted all the reds on the table and was sinking the other colors with nothing short of mechanical precision, his phone bleeped again. He muted it and waited until that final black ball was potted before looking at the message. As he expected, it was from Bridget. There was no text in the message but there was a picture. He pulled it open.

It was a snapshot picture. Bridget was standing with a door behind her in her restaurant outfit. She had her T-shirt pulled up and she was pointing at a bulge below her belly button. There was a red arrow going from the stomach to a one word caption. "YOURS."


	23. It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

She still had her plastic identification bracelet on when she left the hospital. By then the rain was pouring down.

They had almost kicked her out without warning. She still felt awful but the doctor said the worst was over and that she would recover fully if she carefully followed the course of antibiotics. Sure, sure. She still felt like crap. They wouldn't even give her any codeine no matter how much she told them it hurt.

She knew her necessary shopping would be easier if she didn't have two babies in hand so her first stop was the U-Store-It locker to get her money and the other supplies she would need. Then she hit a pre-paid cell store to get just the right model of phone and a spare battery pack. It wouldn't be taking calls. If her plan worked she would only need it once. Then she went to a nearby an internet cafe to pull up the programming instructions for the phone and to test that the reprogrammed unit worked. The directions were accurate and flawless. While she was there she bought a bottle of lime flavored 5-hour Energy.

There was a Goodwill thrift store a few blocks away. There she shopped the Yellow Tag 75% off items for what she needed. She bought a set of gloves, a tattered and ugly T-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, a hideously ugly black wig, a stained hoodie, a Rayco Auto baseball cap and a set of sneakers.

She cringed as she shopped in Goodwill. It was utterly humiliating. She was Siobhan Martin. She spoke fluent French and would live in Paris. She didn't belong in Goodwill. But she managed to soldier on.

Finally she went to a nearby Lowe's hardware store. There she bought a painter's set of overalls, a small can of red paint, a role of duck tape and some copper wire.

Everything was coming into place. Everything was paid for with cash. Nothing directly traced back to her.

She would collect from Andrew. She knew him. He couldn't abandon his children. She would appear at the front lobby of Martin Charles, babes in arms. He'd either have to take her back or pay her to stay away. Either one would work.

She changed into her disguise in the bathroom of a McDonalds and took the subway to Columbia University Medical Center that evening. She had failed at robbing their apartment. The galling irony of it, failing at stealing her own jewelry from her own home. Yet she would get money from Andrew. She had two little hostages, she smiled as she signed the papers the discharge nurse kept putting in front of her. Andrew couldn't abandon his children, she thought. He always was such a sucker for that spoiled brat, Juliet. What would he do for two? There was only one possible risk. The police. She figured they would be after her sooner or later but her inexpensive disguise should work well enough.

The discharge nurse seemed twitchy as she did her other duties. "Dr. Armstrong to Perinatal," she kept signaling over the intercom. "Dr. Armstrong to Perinatal." Siobhan quickly scratched a bogus signature for Rebecca Sheldrake on the huge stack of forms. A portly man with a grey mustache in a hospital volunteer uniform helped her along towards the cab stand and waved the cab down. Before she could get in, he handed her an envelope. "You dropped this." She silently took it even though she didn't remember it.

By the time she was entering the cab, two uniformed cops were running out of the building. "Siobhan Martin. Stop in the name of the law," one shouted as that volunteer who helped her pointed at the cab, but she was already inside. "To Penn Station," she said as the driver sped away, obviously preferring a paying fare to hours of filling out police reports.

The nurse knew. The whole business of calling for Dr. Armstrong must have been a pre-arranged code. But she got away. It was her destiny. She knew that there must be a greater purpose ahead for her.

In the cab she opened the curious envelope that volunteer had given her and her face grew red with fury. It was legal service for a divorce. Andrew had the unmitigated gall to divorce her. She knew now that it had always been his fault. He was the one who was without any natural affection. He was the one who didn't recognize her. She winced when she read in the divorce petition that a court admissible DNA test had established that the children weren't Andrew Martin's. Of all the rotten luck. She looked at one of the girl's faces and was forced to admit that she did see the Romanesque lines of John's nose. It had just been a few times, just to curl his toes. Siobhan knew that men were most agreeable and trusting immediately after orgasm and getting him to agree to her plan was so critical. It must have been the time right after Andrew left when she seduced him so he would go with her got to Wyoming to find a way to flush Bridget back to New York.

She knew that made the two children utterly valueless. She wouldn't get a cent out of John DeLario.

If it weren't for a sadly mistaken feeling that it was Henry's she would have silently ended it in Paris as she had with two of Andrew's before. She had vowed that no child of Andrew's would ever make her a slave to her emotions and her grief the way Sean had. She could just kick herself. Her life, her choice, her own destiny. "I change my mind. Take me to the Port Authority terminal."

She followed the contingency plan she had developed in Queens Hospital Center. With both babies screaming all the way Siobhan took the Port Authority bus to Hoboken. From there she flagged a cab to nearby Hoboken University Medical Center. She found the emergency room easily. There was a big red sign. Once inside she went directly to the admitting desk and told the woman that she couldn't keep her babies and wanted to surrender them.

The woman and a nurse tried to ask her questions but Siobhan just walked out. Under New Jersey's safe haven law, she knew they had to take them and could not stop her.

Even though they would be nothing but a burden it had been a hard choice. However she knew she could not keep them and that it really would be best for them. Beautiful, healthy blond haired infant girls were the queens of the nurseries. They would be adopted quickly. She wondered if they would be kept together or split up. Perhaps being split up would be best.

Henry was nothing if utterly predictable. As she drank the bottle of 5-hour energy she carefully looked the house over. She saw the Volvo wagon out front. She saw the dim night light on in the boy's room and the single light on by the staircase. He was home. Henry always fell asleep by 11:00 PM and it was after midnight. Not that it mattered with the rain pouring down. She would not be heard.

He never locked the downstairs bathroom window. He usually forgot and left it half open. Siobhan also knew exactly where he kept a step ladder in the back yard.

She crept under an overhang in the nearby alley and put on the painter's outfit and gloves over her clothes. She didn't want to leave her fingerprints, DNA or hair inside. Not that it was really necessary to be that careful. If some were found, she would just say "Of course it's mine. I just moved out on Monday. I'm sure my hair and finger prints are all over." Once dressed and outfitted, she crept into Henry's yard, got the ladder and carefully climbed in the dark over the toilet tank and into the bathroom.

That, she knew was the hardest part of the entire operation. The rest would be simple. She drew her gun and went upstairs to Henry's room. She pointed the pistol right at Henry's chest and flicked on the lights. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey."

Henry moved sluggishly and then suddenly jumped up in bed, realizing exactly what was happening. "Siobhan, what are you doing here?"

"Taking back what you stole from me."

He looked at the gun, wondering what to say. He smiled warmly. "Siobhan, you wouldn't do that."

"Why not? I have before."

Henry thought fast. Something told him that she meant it. He didn't even want to ask who. He would just say whatever it took to get out of there alive. "Siobhan, it's me. Yes I was angry but we've always worked it out every time we've fought before. You know we're meant to be together. You didn't have to come like this. You could have just knocked on the door."

"I want back what's mine."

"Of course," he said, climbing out of bed slowly so she didn't startle. "I was beginning to feel guilty about it. I was really thinking of calling you tomorrow."

"I just saved you the trouble."

He went at gunpoint down to the den and sat by his computer. "See, I'll send the money back. No big deal."

"No big deal. I've slept on a cot in the hospital and on a mattress on the floor in a filthy battered women's shelter because of you. I haven't eaten properly or had a cigarette or had a proper bath since you stole my money. And it was no big deal."

"Well we're back together now. I'll cook you anything you want. Everything will be just fine."

She looked over his shoulder at the balance he was going to transfer as she kept the gun pointed to the back of his head. "That's at least $40,000 short."

He could feel a thin stream of gravy begin to pour into his underpants. "I put a deposit on the place in Chicago like we said. We'll close escrow in two weeks. You'll love it."

"I want all of it."

"I can find another $40,000. He went to another account."

"No. All of it. All accounts. Everything."

He considered arguing but knew it would not be very good for his life expectancy. Instead he obeyed. "See, now you have absolutely everything. I trust you, dear. How about us go upstairs and make love all night long?"

"The Chase and Citibank accounts too."

He winced. Gemma's life insurance was in the Chase account. "How do I know you won't just shoot me after."

"Henry, you shouldn't be worried about me shooting you."

He smiled. "Oh, Honey?"

"You need to worry about whether I am going to shoot Dash and Becks after."

His face went white. "You couldn't. They're children. They've never done anything to you."

"Why not? I have the bullets and after two deaths what are two more?"

His hands started to shake but he managed to log into citibank and started the transfers. "Please, Siobhan. You can't do this to me. Not after everything we've had together."

"Hurry up. I don't have all night."

Afterwards, as her ears rang from the two shots she fired into Andrew's head, Siobhan smiled. She had kept her word. She left Dash and Becks alive. She could hear them rustling upstairs. The shots had woken them. She ran the "Secured Shred" command Henry put on his computer. In minutes, everything on that hard drive would be permanently gone and the computer would shut itself down. The she quickly hurried out through back door.

Killing didn't just get easier the second time. It got better. Killing John had almost been an afterthought or an accident. This she had been able to plan and savor, like planning for a date. It had been better than any sex she'd had. She could only dream of how wonderful it would feel to finally kill Bridget.

Back in the alley, she changed out of the painter's clothes and the shoes, bagged them and soaked them in the red paint. They went into the giant dumpster at a construction site two blocks away. Nobody would notice a paint soaked pair of painter's overalls there.

They watch cars in an auto garage. They don't watch for people going to their cars or leaving them, especially not on as cold, as windy and as foul a night as this one was. The rain was biting and miserable. Any security guard they might have had would be huddled away in his office. That's what Siobhan figured anyway. She walked into the garage and went right to where Solomon parked the limo he drove her in. He had taken her there once when she wanted a less conspicuous car like his Toyota Sienna minivan with a child seat and a partition for the dog. The Lincoln was right where she expected it to be. She quickly crawled underneath, wired the cell phone in place and turned it on.


	24. Woot!

Woot!

The flight was long and difficult. Juliet couldn't sleep and couldn't stay awake. Emirates Airline had what they called a "first class suite" on the upper level of the plane. It was barely big enough for a bed to lie down in and there was just a curtain separating her from the outside. It moved every time people walked by.

She was completely unimpressed by their luxury "starlit ceiling." She'd had one of those when she was ten.

She had to reserve time in the "shower spa" on board. It was really just a very tiny shower and sink and the water timer lied. You were supposed to have a full 25 minutes in the spa and a full five minutes in the shower but Juliet had barely lathered when the timer "one minute amber" warning showed. She had to use the sink to finish up.

She had a long lay-over in Dubai and had to change planes. After that, things got much worse. There wasn't even a curtain to pull back on this flight. The seat reclined back so she could have slept if she had been able to but the worst thing of all was that this flight had no internet whatsoever. They didn't have a shower. Then there was another horridly long layover somewhere in Australia but this time she stuck it out on the plane. She was just too frustrated and unhappy to even consider playing tourist. By the time she arrived in New Zealand she felt all sticky and horrid and she had been off Facebook for an entire day.

And then what, she wondered. What would await her on the other end in New Zealand. They kind of spoke English but that was all she knew. It would be even weirder than Andrew's parents in Cardiff.

Then the flight attendant handed out the stupid arrival forms and stubby pencils. Everything had to be printed neatly in UPPER CASE. Why couldn't they just key it in? She hated printing, especially all in upper case.

Fortunately the flight attendant knew the flight name and her seat number. By now, she didn't.

Some she did know, like her name and date of birth. Some she could find, like her passport number. Some she didn't even want to think about like "Occupation or job." She wasn't even sixteen yet. STUDENT.

How long do you intend to stay? She wanted to write "AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE" but instead she put 14 DAYS. She hoped they would be able to bag Siobhan by then.

Then came one where she was stumped. "Full contact or residential address in New Zealand." She wanted to cry. Andrew was supposed to send her a picture and a phone number to her Blackberry, if it would even work in New Zealand. She had no idea.

Then came the back side. "List the countries you have been in the last 30 days." That was easy. Then came another tough one. "Do you know the contents of your baggage?" She lied and checked "Yes." Then came a long section where she was asked if her baggage contained anything from endangered animals to weapons to more than $10,000. She didn't know. She hoped Solomon didn't put any machine guns or endangered tigers in her bags so she checked No by all of them.

When she got out of the plane in Auckland Airport, she passed a Burger King. It made her smile. That icon of American civilization had reached this foreign land. Then she had to stand forever to get to the customs desk. First she had to explain over and over to them that her computer and her ipod and her phone were hers and she was taking them back. No she didn't have any agricultural goods. Men in uniforms came with little beagles on leashes came and the dogs sniffed her and her bags. Fortunately the dogs weren't at all interested in her.

The man behind the counter who actually kind of cute, blond haired in sort of a way if he hadn't been acting like such a butt head. "What do you mean you don't know where you're going?" He kept pointing to the blank part of her entry card.

"It's my Dad's cousin. I don't know. He said he'd get it to me." She turned on her Blackberry. Fortunately it did find the network and in a moment she had several messages. She pulled them up and looked at the address. "See." Dad had even sent a picture. She had long blond hair and a slightly prettier version of Andrew's face.

Whoever she was, he seemed quite surprised by it. "That's your cousin?"

"My Dad's cousin."

Her name was bad enough. Dr. Eirian Gwalchmai. Even with it right in front of her she didn't even want to try to write down the address and would have absolutely no idea how to pronounce street or city names like Kukutauwhao. Fortunately by now the customs man had grabbed the card and was scribbling away.

Once he was through, he started going through her bags. It looked like Solomon had just emptied her drawers and the clothes on the hanger at the hotel into Andrew's duffel bag, clean and dirty clothes alike. It was a mess. By now she was beyond caring as he pawed through her underwear as she retreated to reading her Blackberry. Andrea had texted over and over about how much of a douche bag her ex boyfriend had acted. She would go over those carefully later. London had texted too asking what happened to Siobhan. She didn't even want to try to answer that one. As she stood there, another message came in. This one was from Bridget. That one got priority handling. "I sent this to Andrew. I'm waiting to hear back from him." There was a picture with the message. She pulled it up and shrieked "Woot! Oh My God. Oh My God. Wow!" She jumped up and down. "Woot!"

Suddenly the whole area was silent. All eyes were on her. She held the picture up for all to see. "It's alright. It's alright. My Stepmom is pregnant."


	25. Oh Crap!

Oh Crap!

Andrew sat staring at the picture on his Droid of Bridget pointing to a pooched out stomach with the caption "YOURS!"

He found that he had lost interest in the snooker tournament as his mind kept wheeling around and around. She could be lying. She could be pregnant but it's someone else's. After Siobhan, anything awful was all too possible.

The lie of her being pregnant when she wasn't would become ... obvious ... soon. But who was the father? Malcolm? Solomon? Agent Machado? It could have been Kenny the doorman for all he knew.

He turned off the TV and then noticed that his phone was beeping again, no doubt another message from Bridget telling him to hurry over. He pulled it up. It was from Juliet. "Am safe. Aweso u 2 overdue w/ that banging! MorF? WBS. ILU." He read it a couple of times. If he guessed the meaning of the message correctly then he didn't need to tell her the news.

His mind ran into a thousand paths of confusion. What did he do now? Sunday of last week he would have been overjoyed if his wife of seven years had told him that she was pregnant. Now he had an ex-girlfriend he wasn't married to that was pregnant and a murderer with a gun and reason to kill him for a wife.

Foremost on his mind was Juliet. Bridget and Juliet were back to being fast friends. Women always stuck together to control men. But he knew he could not do or say anything that would permanently damage his relationship with Juliet and that meant that if it were his child then he was definitely going to have to be financially responsible and to not be an absentee father.

That is what he had been, an absentee father. He had been the financial father but little more. He had devoted his time and energy to climbing his way to the top and not to his family. Could he have made a marriage with Catherine? He wondered and as he wondered the uncertainty in his mind about whose fault it was greatly bothered him. Would she have slid into her addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs if he had been there each night as a loving husband and father? He shook his head, unable to ever know for sure.

Could he ever make up to this baby for that sinking feeling he had when he thought of those years he had left Juliet with Catherine after the divorce? He felt so relieved that she was growing up into a normal young woman and not like the drugged out residents of one rehab center after another that other fathers had talked about, mainly while working late at night and with a drink in their hands as they drank their sorrows about their children away. Juliet would get away with what she could. She could be a brat, be greedy, be ungrateful, self centered, uncaring, moody and utterly foolish yet she had occasional sensible moments. In other words, she was a normal teen-aged girl. He was very fortunate.

No, he wasn't. Six months ago Juliet had been on the path of teen-age self destruction. He wasn't the one who had been there to turn her around and he had to admit it.

He washed up, shaved, and put on a casual set of clothes. He should look comfortable and in control. He had the new doorman hail him a cab.

As the cab went down Second Avenue towards Steinberg's Deli he looked out the window and tried to compose himself by watching the people and listening to the familiar sound of the honking traffic and the sirens. It was hopeless. His mind kept going around in circles as he tried to decided what he wanted. By now, he honestly had no idea. The route was so familiar. He knew the stores, office buildings and restaurants before they appeared yet nothing quite seemed real. Everything felt unreal, almost like a repeating dream.

He paid the cab and went inside, looking around. Sophie spotted him. "She's not here," she said.

"Where is she?"

"She went to Mass." She looked at the clock. "She'll be back in maybe half an hour. She did leave something for you."

He took it from her. It was a sonogram image. He looked at it and stared and stared.

Moe walked up to him. "You should take a seat. Can I get you anything."

Andrew nodded dimly. "A cup of tea, with lemon and sugar." He took his raincoat and hat off and sat, taking in the reality of everything. He looked again at the picture. That was a baby. Was he imagining it or was that his father's nose?

He pulled out his phone and did some google research on paternity tests and the law in New York. It gave him some options and a minimum and a maximum amount on how much this would cost him.

Moe brought a pot of hot water and tea bags for him. Andrew made himself a cup and sipped some. The hot, familiar liquid was soothing to him.

Andrew was still researching when Bridget came back. "Andrew," she said, sounding pleased and more than a little surprised to see him. He looked up and did his best smile.

Bridget took off her wellies and coat and put them and her umbrella away. Sophie smiled. "They were K-mart's best." Bridget looked at her counter and looked at Andrew and then looked back to her counter. "Go, sit. Moe can make sandwiches a little longer."

She sat. "Hi," she said nervously. "I guess you got the message."

He nodded awkwardly. "I did."

"I'm keeping it."

That answered that question. His understanding of Juliet settled the matter of trying to get her to do anything different. It would not be worth it. "How far along are you?"

"The sonogram woman said about ten weeks."

"And you've known ..."

"I found out for sure yesterday. I've kind of suspected since ..." She wrinkled her nose, thinking. "I think about two weeks ago I suspected it."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I thought it was from being poisoned by Catherine at first. But then I felt worse. I figured it was just stress. Having three people try to murder me in less than a month is enough to make anyone feel like they are going to throw up. It wasn't until I came here and I was relaxed and calm and I still felt sick that I was sure."

He had to admit she had tried twice on Friday. "Now what?"

She shrugged. "Now I go and make sandwiches."

"You make sandwiches?"

"For as many months as I can." She looked deep in his eyes. "I am OK with staying here and working as long as I can. I am grateful for the people who help me and having as much as I do and I am doing my best to remember that and stay in the now but the third trimester has me really worried. Sooner or later I just won't be able to work. I'm not even sure how I'll pay for the hospital. This is just an hourly minimum wage."

He nodded. "How do I know it's mine?"

"It is. I can't prove it for seven more months but it is. I love you, Andrew. You and only you. Like nobody I have ever loved before. I want to be with you and only you until I die. I want to care for you and I want to help you and I want you and ONLY you in my bed at night. Since I became Siobhan and fell in love with you, the thought of sex with any other man ... makes me kind of disgusted."

He wanted to answer that he loved her too but it wasn't within him. Did he love her and was he just too afraid to admit it? "What if we could prove it, now?"

She waved her hand and backed away. "I've heard of these tests where they stick needles into the baby. No thanks. I'll work here first."

"Nothing like that. It's a new test. It's just a small blood sample from you. It takes about a week to get the results. I'm not sure if you're still too early. Some web sites say nine weeks, some say twelve weeks, some say it's fourteen weeks. They advertise it's 99.9% accurate."

She lit up like a Christmas tree and rubbed his hand. "That's wonderful! Just promise me one thing?"

"What?"

"If it says no, don't be a butt face about getting tested after the baby is born. I know it's yours. I don't want to be the one in a thousand that gets stuck because a fancy new test is wrong." Bridget watched him carefully. It wasn't going as bad as she feared or as well as she had hoped.

He looked at her. "I promise." What she said, it wasn't Siobhan talking. He could never see Siobhan being grateful for the chance to work making sandwiches for minimum wage. Quiet, honest work had always been her enemy. He tried to remember Siobhan ever saying she really and truly loved him. Not the "Love you" that was always used by a married couple to end a phone call, but really acting like she felt and meant it. Siobhan had always been a trophy wife. She hit on him at a vulnerable spot as Catherine was systematically destroying his ego and the whole world around him.

He looked at Bridget's sweet, innocent face and blinked and he saw Siobhan shooting John DeLario. Her sister was a killer. She was a killer. She killed someone less than a week ago and now he was talking with her about love and paternity tests. What had he gotten himself into?


	26. 911

911

Ting was going on her three year anniversary of being a 911 operator in the city that never sleeps. She was proud of her job. She liked helping others and she liked to work the graveyard shift. That way she could still be up in the morning to send her children off to school.

She had worked hard to get the job. She had worked for years after she came to America to perfect her English and her American accent. She had studied basic Spanish as well. That in combination with her Mandarin and Cantonese made her a valuable addition to the team of New York City emergency operators.

Her first call of the evening was from a young man in Harlem whose mother had passed out in what sounded like a diabetic coma. The second call was from the Sigma Nu fraternity at Columbia. Someone nobody knew came in from a party at another fraternity and passed out on their floor and the caller reported that he had thrown up and he didn't think the intruder was breathing. The next was from a mother in a penthouse apartment that overlooked Central Park in the Upper East Side who had been fighting with her teen-aged daughter after she found birth control pills in her room and the girl had just suddenly run away.

She started the next call like every other one. "Police operator 4-3-9-7. Where is the emergency?"

A distant voice said "Um, hello?" It sounded like a small child.

"Hello," she said. "Is everything OK?"

"Hi."

"Hi." Unfortunately one of the consequences of teaching children how to call 911 was that they would all too often make up a story and call the 911 line. Unfortunately every one had to be checked out. The last time a child that sounded like this they said they had been left alone in the house. When the police got there, an Italian family was holding a family reunion and the home was packed with responsible adults.

"Daddy needs help," said the little voice.

That made her eyes go wide. "What's wrong?"

"I think there is a bullet on the floor."

"And the what!"

"And there is blood, coming out of my dad's mouth."

Either this one had a very sick and very detailed imagination or this call would be leading to something awful. The address of the calling home was on her screen. She keyed in a dispatch to a squad car and added a summary description. "He did? Where's mommy at?"

"She's dead."

"What do you mean sweetheart?"

"A bad man came and took her and shot her."

"OK, your daddy is bleeding. How old are you?

"I'm four years old and I have a dog in a house."

This one got Ting's pulse hammering. It sounded too much like it was real. "OK baby, OK. Let me get someone right over to you. Are you with your daddy?

"Uh-huh, and there is blood."

"All over the place?"

"Not all over. There's blood on the desk and his computer."

That was far more frightening. A child who was lying would say there was blood all over. But it was her job to stay calm and keep him calm. "Oh my goodness and you have your little doggie with you?"

"And two goldfish."

"And two goldfish?"

"Two goldfish and one dog."

"OK, are you the only one there besides mommy and daddy?"

"Mommy is gone and I said 'Daddy' and he didn't even answer."

When Ting had first come to America, she liked old reruns of a show called Rescue 911. That's where she learned about the job. This would be a story for that show. "OK, OK, what I want you to do honey. I want you to stay on the phone with me. What is your name?"

"Dash."

They only gave 911 operators one week of training. The first thing they taught was to keep calm yourself. The second was to keep the caller calm and talking so she kept asking questions. "Oh that is a very nice name. What is your doggie's name?"

"Frank."

"How old are you, Dash?"

"Four."

"Four?"

"Uh huh."

Ask for the same information multiple ways to cross check the answers. "Is your daddy awake?"

"Nnn- nnn."

"OK, and what made you wake up tonight?"

"There was, I think I heard a gunshot."

"You heard a gun?"

"Yes, and I see bullets lying on the floor. I think it's a bullet."

"Really!"

"Mmm-hmm."

Was this really a child by their dead father who had been shot. She had to assume so. Now she had to think of the officers who would soon be at the scene. "Who has a gun in the house?"

"I don't see a gun but I'm scared."

The child could say he saw a gun to magnify the story but didn't.

She thought of how her own children would feel if they found her husband dead. They would be completely terrified. "Oh sweetheart!. .. I will not let anything happen to you."

"Can you send a policeman here?"

"I promise I will. .. and you're only 4 years old?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"You are so smart for 4 years old. Wow!. .. are you in school, Dash?

"Um, no, I go to school next year."

"Oh my, you're not even in kindergarten yet?"

"Nope."

"Oh, what's your doggie's name?"

"Frank."

The child's answers were disturbingly consistent. Ting forced herself to remain calm. "Frank, what kind of doggie is she?"

"He's a pug."

Useless little dogs, Ting thought. All noise, no brains. Good only for the pot. The officers would be glad it wasn't a pit bull or a Doberman though. They could kick a pug across the room if it annoyed them. "Oh, you are so smart."

"With, um, brown eyes."

"Oh my goodness, how old is he?"

"He is like 3 years old, or, 2 years old, I don't really know."

When he doesn't know an answer he says so. "Oh my goodness. Was there anybody else in the house tonight besides you and daddy tonight? Like an uncle or anything?"

"Nnn- nnn. Just my brother."

"What's his name?"

"Beck."

Who names their children Dash and Beck, she wondered. They sounded like Santa Claus's reindeer names. "How old is your brother."

"Four."

"OK. So and the doors are all locked? And everything like that. .. Where are you in the house?"

"Well, I was in my room sleeping till I heard a noise shot and it woke me up."

Always exactly the same response. "Oh my goodness. Uh, what part of the house are you in at now?"

"I'm in the one, it's all red and has a big table."

"That sounds really cool. Did you pick out the red walls?"

"Um, no, my mom picked it out."

"OK, listen to me Dash. Is your phone the type that you can take with you and walk around?

"Um, this..."

"Is the front door unlocked?"

"No."

"There should be an officer at your front door. I need for you to take your phone with you and walk over to the door and open it for me, OK? And I will stay on the phone with you, OK?"

"But um ... I'm in my jammies. I need to get dressed first."

"Dash, I don't think the officers will care. We just want to make sure that mommy and daddy are OK, all right?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Stay on the phone with me, stay on the phone, alright?"

"OK."

"My name is Ting, by the way. You are doing a wonderful job Dash, wonderful job. Have you unlocked the front door?"

"I'm too little."

"That's fine. You are doing an excellent job. Did you know that?"

"I knew."

"Is there a back door?"

"Yes."

"You were wonderful, absolutely wonderful. You should be very proud of yourself."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Can you go open the back door?"

Ting could hear the footsteps. She could hear the wind and the rain from the storm. Finally Dash said "The back door is open."

She dispatched the information. A few moments later she could hear the repeater tones of police radios. "OK, you let me know when the officers talk to you. OK you go ahead Dash, talk to the officers."

Finally she heard the much deeper voice of an adult male in the background. "You're talking to 911? OK, tell the operator we're here now and you can hang up."

"Bye sweetheart," she said.

"Um, they're here."

"OK sweetheart, you be good, OK? Bye-bye."


	27. Goat Screw

Goat Screw

It seemed like he had just fallen asleep when there was a knock at his door. "Tim. Tim." It took him a moment to stir but he knew the voice. It was James.

He checked by the light of his alarm clock to make sure Martha had at least a sheet to cover her and then he silently slipped on a casual kimono and a set of simple woven grass zoris on his feet and snuck out into the hallway as he tied the obi around his waist. "What is it?"

"There are cops downstairs. You better put some American clothes on and come on down."

He nodded. "Why are they here?"

"Get dressed first."

As he dressed in public clothing this time he checked the time. It was 0230. By the time he had his pants and a shirt on to receive the police, James had his raincoat on and was slipping a SIG P226 pistol into his shoulder holster. The light was on in their bedroom. This wasn't something minor like some punk trying to break into the garage. "What's going on?"

"It's about your grandsons. They're not telling me but I don't think it's good."

He nodded followed James downstairs. Two uniformed police officers stood in the large entrance way looking at the rack of shoes as their boots left muddy footprints. "Tim Arbogast," one of the two asked.

"Yes."

"I am Officer Williams and this is Officer Garcia. Your son in law Henry Butler was murdered in his home tonight."

"Oh really," he said, not at all surprised. "My grandsons?"

"Unharmed. One of them found the body and called 911."

Unharmed? No child that age should have to find a murdered father, even a walking rectum like Henry. "Do they know who did it?"

Garcia shook his head. "They are still investigating. Detectives are working the scene now. We will tell you as soon as we know anything."

"Where are my grandsons?"

Garcia then pulled a 3 by 5 card out from a pocket in his uniform and started writing. "Dispatch said they were being taken to the 19th Precinct on East 67th Street. This is the case number and the detective in charge. Go there with this. They're expecting you."

Tim nodded and shook their hands. "Thank you officers." He picked up a pair of rubber jikatabis from his rack of shoes by the door and put on a raincoat and hat from the coat rack. "James, have Rebecca get Martha ready and be ready to receive the twins. Hopefully they'll go right to sleep but with something like this you never know. And get the kid seats in the back of the car."

"Yes, Tim"

"We'll just let ourselves out," Williams said.

Once the police were gone, Tim slipped into the living room and got one of his favorite cigars from his ammo can humidor, a genuine Havana H Upmann Petit Corona, bit the end off and lit it with his Marine Corps Zippo lighter. The Petit Corona was Jack Kennedy's favorite and if it was good enough for President Kennedy it would be good enough to celebrate tonight. Despite what his doctor would say, he knew that tonight the nicotine would do him good. The boys needed him to be alert and calm.

He had invested quite heavily in the best high resolution night vision cameras available for his little corner of Ray Kelly's Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. Soon he would find out of that investment had paid off. He grabbed some small blankets from the linen closet and as he slipped his jikatabis on and puffed his cigar he realized how little he truly he had to celebrate. He knew exactly what the one who called himself "Lord of All" would say how his plan had worked tonight. "Those who were adept and brave fellows I have made military commanders. Those who were quick and nimble I have made herders of horses. Those who were not adept I have given a small whip and sent to be shepherds."

He walked in the dark and the drizzle to the garage carrying the blankets and tossed them in the car and then strapped down one car seat as James tightened down the other. Today, he would have been lucky if his hero would let him be a shepherd. This had been a total goat screw and he was the one responsible. He was lucky Dash and Beck were still alive. His mistake cost him connecting with his target and taking it out. He had only two more pieces of bait to bag Siobhan, Andrew and Bridget. He could and would not repeat the same mistake twice.


	28. Losing and Winning

Losing and Winning

Her blackberry and the clock on the kitchen wall said it was Midnight but the watch on her wrist and Juliet's body told her that it was morning. She was investigating what New Zealanders ate for breakfast. She found a box of something called "Weet-bix." It was by a company called Sanitarium Foods. Somehow that sounded appropriate. Perhaps if the whole family ate sanitarium food they might even get a little more sane. The blue and red box had a big circle that proudly advertised 97% whole grain. She put two big biscuits that vaguely resembled shredded wheat in a bowl and poured milk and dried apricots on it. It actually sounded healthy.

As she finished her bowl full she sent a message to Dad asking when she could go home. It was the start of morning back in the real world. The whole universe would be up and texting and on Facebook so she didn't feel like being asleep. She wanted to be home and back in school.

With nobody at home, there was no reason not to be the first person at the office. So he grabbed a simple breakfast at home, prepared himself, put his research notes on a thumb drive and grabbed a cab.

The rain was easing up. It was now more of a pleasant sprinkle, rather like home.

How far was he from the Deli, he wondered as he took the elevator up. Perhaps two miles, ten minutes by cab with luck. It was almost directly on his way home. He had the idea of just casually dropping in, as if to get something for dinner. Hardly original and hardly cool, but the idea somehow brightened his mood.

Once he got off the elevator, it was almost completely silent in Martin Charles. He'd even beat Andrea, the receptionist. He went into his office and hung his coat. The cleaning lady had done a good job on Friday. He booted his computer and then he noticed that the message light was blinking on his phone. He'd checked for messages yesterday after he'd gotten home in case a client called or Tim wanted to say something about his proposal.

The voice mail said it was from an outside caller at 3:12 AM. Who would be calling then? London? Paris? It would be early even for them. Then the recording played. "Andrew, This is Tim Arbogast." He sounded tired, almost depressed. "I won't be in the office today. You're in charge. Get my calendar from Andrea and hold down the fort. I will call later but I don't know when. Henry Butler was murdered last night. We're having to take care of the twins and make permanent legal arrangements. Hold on making your oil recommendation public. I had some questions and just can't deal with it now. At moments like this, money just doesn't feel very important. Call James's cell phone if there's a real emergency. Otherwise I'll check in with you when I can." The call ended just like that. No "goodbye" or other such courtesy.

He sat, confused and terrified. It was one thing to think someone was likely enough to murder that you'd pay a few thousand dollars to send them to safety. It was another to know your worst fears had been completely justified.

His phone beeped in his unique tone for a text from Juliet. He quickly flipped through it and then sent one of his own to her.

Juliet was surprised when her phone farted on the kitchen table. She picked it up. It was from Dad. She read it. His reply was not at all what she had expected. "Henry butler murdered. Stay put. Stay hidden."

After cleaning up the kitchen she decided to make another vain attempt at sleeping. She had to accept her prison.

In the 19th precinct, Stavros relaxed at his desk eating a traditional Greek breakfast that his wife had packed for him. Milk that he heated in the microwave with, her fresh baked bread, honey and yoghurt. The loving food gave him hope for the day.

There were two phases to catching the criminals behind a crime. The first was to get the evidence to give enough information to show who did it. The second was to apprehend them so they could be taken to trial. Fortunately the first phase of this investigation was over. The security cameras nicely showed someone change clothes and climb into a window at Henry Butler's place. What was even more beautiful was when the high resolution camera that was focused on the rear door of Henry Butler's home beautifully recorded the face of either Siobhan Martin or Bridget Kelly exiting the home, gun still in hand.

He had no doubt as to which twin did the murder. The upstairs security camera at Steinberg's Deli showed Bridget go to her room at 2241 hours on Sunday. At 0112 hours on Monday, about ten minutes after the murder, Bridget exited the room and went to the bathroom, where she stayed two minutes and then returned to the bedroom and didn't exit until 5:10 in the morning where she spent four minutes in the bathroom and then returned to bed. He loved the infra red camera's detail in low light conditions. Bridget had worn a spaghetti strapped nightgown to the bathroom and really had quite a nice little rack. He pulled up different frames, oh a nice side shot. Then he noticed something interesting on her right shoulder and zoomed in on it.

He noticed a large head snaking around beside him, almost so close to his food that it could lick it. "Going for a little soft porn on company time," Goren asked.

"You have a filthy mind, Goren. This is surveillance video for the investigation of the murder of Henry Butler." He pulled up the image of the killer exiting Henry's door, gun still in hand. "One of the two twins did it. I was just verifying which." He flipped back to the tattoo, enlarging on it. "Then I saw this."

Goren looked at it. "It's a Narcotics Anonymous logo, and something above it. Can't tell what."

Stavros pulled up another set of surveillance video from the crime scene. "Look, this twin is putting on a set of coveralls outside the murder scene, probably in a stupid attempt to not leave any traces behind. Now watch the shoulder in that T shirt." He froze the frame. It was a bare shoulder. "These twins are no longer identical."

"They rarely are, actually. One's always a little bigger somehow. I dated a twin once. She tried to pull the gag of having her sister go out with me thinking I couldn't tell a couple of times."

"You could tell?"

"They looked the same but I could always tell just by holding her hand."

"Something magical about her touch?"

"No, her wrist was bigger."

By the time Andrea arrived at Martin Charles, Andrew had begun pacing. She was surprised to see him so early and surprised to see Andrew look so stressed. "Hi," she said, looking closer at him as she hung her umbrella on the coat rack.

By now the others had begun streaming in. He knew Andrea as the receptionist had to know what was going on but he wasn't sure how much Tim would want others to know. He didn't know Tim that well, really. Was he a private person? Andrew suspected so. "Good morning, Andrea. When you have a moment, would you mind coming in my office?"

She nodded and followed him in. He waved for her to have a seat and then he played Tim's message.

Andrea was stunned. "Oh that poor man. Who could have done that, leaving those two boys as orphans?"

Obviously Tim hadn't told Andrea of the deep, dark secrets of the firm and he wasn't telling either. "I know. My heart goes out for the children. That's why we need to all do what we can so Tim has all the time he needs during this bereavement."

She nodded. "I'll print out his calendar."

"Thank you. Please keep this in confidence for now. I don't want everyone to waste the day talking about it."

"Understood."

"Thank you."

In a few minutes, Andrea returned with a printout. He recognized the meeting that Tim knew was so critical. It was a report to one of their first investors and still a major account, the pension fund board of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns at their headquarters building in the Upper West Side at 2:00. He'd barely have time to make a decent presentation.

"And please see if you can get that divorce lawyer on the phone for me. I've got a few questions." He pulled his card off the desk and handed it to her. Of course he could have called him directly but he knew that important people worth calling back always had someone else call for them."

"Of course. Anything else?"

He shook his head. "I'll take care of the rest. Thanks."

"Door open or closed?"

"Closed."

As soon as Andrea stepped out he pulled his mobile out of his jacket and phoned Solomon. "Hi, Solomon. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time."

"No, just came back from taking the kids to school. How can I help you?"

"I definitely need help. Your part is easy. I need a car and driver today."

"I can be there in about an hour. Where to?"

"Two runs. I need you to take Bridget to a genetics lab in the Soho and I have a 2:00 meeting on the Upper West Side that I need to look impressive for."

"A genetics lab?"

"Yeah. She's pregnant. I want to make sure it's mine."

"Ooh, congratulations, Andrew. You are going to be a Papa."

"You really think it's mine?"

"Oh yeah." Then Solomon began to sang in an off key Bass but it was definitely with sincere feeling.

"She's in love with you, that's all she wants to do

She'll never let you down, she'll never fool around

'Cos she's in love with you

She's in love with you, that's all she wants to do

She'll never let you go, she may not let you know, but she's in love with you

So take her home and hold her close, touch her where she feels it most, but be true

And when she's making love to you, she'll do what you want her to

Treat her good, treat her like you know you should

You may never find another girl like her"

Somehow, Andrew began to laugh. "Keep your day job. That was awful."

"So my kids keep telling me. But she really does love you."

His speaker phone buzzed. "Andrew, I have Edwin Newman on line two for you."

"Thanks," he said to the speaker phone, then put his Droid back to his ear. "Got to go. See you in a bit. I'll text you the address," and he hung up.

He switched phone lines. "Hello. This is Andrew Martin. We met Friday."

"My secretary said you had some questions. I was actually going to call later. We made legal service on Sunday at the hospital. My best guy had to wait three days but he finally got her. You are now formally estranged from your soon to be ex wife."

"That's good, but it's not why I called. Ah, how much did Tim explain to you about what the background history was."

"My, I admit this is one of the more ... colorful ... cases. The twin part ... that's really a new one."

"Ah yeah about the twin and the new one. She's pregnant."

"Happy Father's Day."

"So what does it mean legally?"

"As an unwed father, you have the right to pay money and that's about it. If she were found to be grossly unfit you could get sole custody. With luck you'll be able to work out reasonable visitation privileges, and we'd be very happy to help you. If you like changing diapers, you probably could get a 50% share of the custody."

"If it's really mine, how much is this kid going to cost me?"

"From the day Junior is born until 21st birthday, maybe retroactive if she gets a good lawyer. If she has full custody then child support usually runs about fourteen percent of your income but we will fight to get it capped at the official maximum which is currently about $45,000 a year plus your paying other expenses like half of medical."

He knew Juliet wouldn't allow that and he wasn't sure his conscience would either. He wouldn't go through the life time of guilt from abandoning another child. He did some quick mental math, costing out that 14% a year and began to think of alternatives. "Thank you. I'll be back in touch with you about it soon. On another matter, my first ex-wife Catherine with whom I have a fifteen year old daughter is currently in jail awaiting trial for murder. I had unofficial sole custody. Catherine has some property in Florida and California worth around three million dollars. I will want official permanent full custody and I want child support."

"Child support? How much?"

"Enough to leave her penniless in five years when Juliet turns 21."

There was a chuckle at the other end of the phone. "I like it. Murder, you said?"

"Murder, kidnapping and a lot of other awful things that she'll get two life sentences for. I'll have my secretary send the information I have."

"I'll look at it and I'll get back to you and I will keep you posted on the divorce."

After finishing up with his lawyer, he texted Solomon the address for Max-Genetics. He should know where it was, on the opposite corner from the Diamond on Broadway. He tried to call Bridget, but it went to voice mail so he looked at a take-out menu with the address and phoned the Deli.

Sophie answered. "Steinberg's Deli. How may we serve you?"

"Hi Sophie, it's Andrew. I've got my chauffeur coming by in oh maybe an hour to pick up Bridget."

"I'll clock her out and Moe can cover. What is it for?"

"Pre-natal paternity testing at a genetics lab."

"Is it safe?"

"Perfectly. Got to run. Hopefully I can stop by for dinner." With that, he turned to making a power point for the church pension fund. Fortunately their account had been near a simulated peak in their Ponzi scheme money flow.

In the Deli, Sophie turned to Bridget. "Andrew's limo will be picking you up in about an hour. He's taking you for some lab test."

"That's good."

"And maybe he'll come for dinner."

"That's even better."

In a room at a cash only hotel perhaps a mile from Bridget, Siobhan slept through the morning. It wasn't until Andrew was already on the way to his meeting with the pension fund board of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns that she stirred. She counted her remaining money. She wouldn't pay for another night even at this miserable excuse for a hotel but she desperately needed that one good night's sleep to pull this off. She gambled everything she had on one throw of the dice and she knew it.

She felt awful but she had to go on. She got a cheap hot dog from a gas station for breakfast. Then she did everything she could to make herself look successful and presentable. She took a thorough bath in the filthy tub and then a second one. She carefully made herself up and dressed in the best clothes she had. She looked in the bathroom mirror. She still looked fat and sick from the babies but it would have to do. She emptied the back pack, except for her gun. She'd chance her clothes and makeup being stolen but she would definitely have need of the gun.

She took one of the good pain pills she got at the hospital and then caught a cab to the Bank of America at West 57th St and Broadway. It was only a few blocks, really almost within walking distance. But she wanted to look her very best.

She walked in with her best poise and went up to the reception desk. A college-jock looking young man wearing a white shirt and inexpensive yet tasteful tie sat behind the desk. She smiled at him, entirely for effect rather than any interest. She was too tired and sick feeling to be interested that way in anybody. "Excuse me, but I need to talk to a banker."

"Please sign in. It will just be a moment," he said as he stepped away from his desk.

Fortunately nobody was ahead of her in line.

In a moment, he was back with a banker. "Francine will help you."

Francine was a pleasant faced woman about her age with straight blond hair and bright blue eyes. She lead Siobhan back to her office and as Siobhan sat she pulled out her wallet and casually put her false driver's license and the ATM card she had for Rebecca Sheldrake on her desk. "I need to make a withdrawal."

Francine looked up, puzzled. "They can help you with that at the service desk."

Siobhan pulled a slip of paper out of her purse. "I need it for $714,312, in cash." She knew that would leave about five thousand dollars in the account, enough so that it would look like she was coming back.

Francine nodded. "I see, Rebecca. That's a lot of money. Wouldn't you prefer a cashier's check for your safety?"

"Their lawyer said it has to be cash. You see, Andrew my former boss was laid off and he has this beautiful house that they will foreclose on tonight at 6:00 PM if he doesn't pay the back payments on it. It's a really gorgeous house but in this economy he hasn't been able to move it and now he's run out of time. He's so desperate that he will sell it to us for just enough that he'll walk away without a repossession on his credit record."

She pulled the account up on the screen. "I see a number of deposits into this account last night."

She nodded. "From Henry, my fiancé. We put all our money together just in case Andrew accepted our offer and Andrew just phoned me and so we're jumping."

"Are you sure you're not getting into something risky or a bad investment? Maybe you should think it over."

Siobhan shook her head. "No time. I'll barely make it to the lawyer now. And I have been at Andrew's home so often. It's one of those beautiful red brick Queen Anne Henderson Place area historic district houses and it's right by Carl Schurz Park. He completely renovated it about fifteen years ago and it's just gorgeous." Describing the details of the house came very easily. She had just described Henry and Gemma's home.

"If you will just wait a moment." Francine stepped out taking the ID and bank card with her.

Siobhan could see Francine talking to a fat, bald man that she guessed was the manager. She watched for indications that an alarm had been tripped. She knew she had her emergency exit plan in her pack but didn't want to use it if at all possible.

After what felt like an eternity, Francine came back. "If you will come this way please, Rebecca."

Francine led her into the area by the vault. Were they going to lock her in the vault? It would be the safest way to imprison her. Instead, he pulled a cart of money over and began to count it. She smiled. She was winning. She could feel it. Destiny was speaking to her. She was meant to triumph over them all. No, not just triumph over them but to destroy them. It wasn't enough just for her to succeed. All of them must utterly fail. Henry had defied her. See how he ended up. Next would come Bridget and then Andrew's turn.


	29. It Was Evening And It Was Morning

It Was Evening And It Was Morning

Solomon played the formal chauffeur to the hilt as he held the door open for Andrew as he got back in the limo and then closed the door behind him. He then very solemnly got in and drove away from the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns and back to Martin Charles. Then he relaxed. "Did it go OK?"

Andrew nodded. "I think so. At first the board was unhappy it wasn't Tim but I explained they could wait until after the funeral of his son in law who completely unexpectedly passed this morning or they could talk to me now. They reluctantly listened to me. They didn't argue that their portfolio had outpaced inflation. Then I reminded them that what they asked for was stability relative to inflation and not risky growth and that's exactly what we delivered. After a while one of them slipped that I had done better than the other company managing their assets."

"How bad?"

"Bad enough if I read their faces right. I suggested splitting the remains of the other fund between stability and growth and said I'd get back to them on Thursday with a more concrete proposal. They acted quite interested."

"That sounds good."

"Thanks again for picking up those binders and the presentation covers at Kinko's. We would be out of half inch binders and the good color laser printer would decide to die this morning."

"No problem. I got the binders while Bridget got the blood test." He handed the receipt to Andrew. "The Kinko's Claudine sent the printouts to was right by the deli. Bridget even said she wanted to walk back from there."

Andrew read the receipt and handed Solomon enough cash to cover it. "How was Bridget this morning?"

"Good. She seemed excited to get the blood test." Solomon looked beside him. "You were so frantic on the way up with getting those presentation binders assembled that I didn't want to bother you on the way up, but do you ever read National Geographic?"

"Just in doctor's offices."

"I got one I think you'd be interested in." Solomon flipped the magazine to the back by Andrew.

Andrew picked it up and looked at the cover. It was from January. Two freckle faced girls that looked almost identical were on the cover. The caption read TWINS - alike but not alike. "It looks interesting." Unfortunately, it only reinforced Andrew's belief that Solomon was far too close to Bridget to be impartial. Instead he would use Solomon for his knowledge. "Would you be willing to do a little detective work for me?"

"The wife can always use a little more money. What do you need?"

"Who was the father of Siobhan's twins?"

Solomon shrugged and was going to say he didn't know, but then it hit him. "I'll bet it was John DeLario. If he kidnapped Gemma for Siobhan then she had some pull over him. Usually when a woman gets a man to do something like that it means she's leading him by his leash."

"Can you get evidence to prove it?"

"How? Dead men don't give DNA samples."

"What about his relatives?"

Solomon nodded. "I can try."

"Good. Just drop me off then at the office. I'll take a cab to the Deli."

After returning to the office, Andrew held a company meeting and announced about Henry's death and that Tim was going to be distracted with the twins and making arrangements and that everyone needed to work extra hard so Tim would have the time he needed. That gave everyone only a little over an hour to gossip on company time.

As Andrew was going through a numerical analysis textbook on cubic Hermite splines and was formulating a strategy to use them to return Martin Charles to profitability and to keep it there, Claudine announced that Tim was on the phone for him. He gave Tim a summary of the meeting and he seemed pleased. He seemed even more pleased when he explained to Tim that he had just told the company about Henry's death because he didn't want the company wasting productive time gossiping about it and the hour they would waste was far, far more than Henry deserved.

With orders to keep his calendar but to call James's mobile before making any major decisions or purchasing decisions over $500, Tim left Andrew in charge again.

As Andrew read, his mind kept turning about matters unrelated to third degree spline polynomials. Finally he gave in and called Eye Q detective agency. They had been recommended to him eight months ago when he was considering having Siobhan tracked for signs of infidelity, that was until he returned from his month in London and everything at home suddenly seemed to be doing much better.

Could twins really be different? The National Geographic article said that when one twin broke the law the other was 50% more likely to also break the law. He supposed that was true in this case. They had both done so, but in different ways and for different reasons. Before making any sort of a decision, this time he would get every piece of information he could. That included getting a complete background and premarital investigation check on both of them. If he had done this with Catherine he'd never have even made a pass at her in a bar.

About the same time Andrew was trying to hail a cab to Steinberg's Deli, Siobhan was eating her dinner. She had left herself just enough cash to be comfortable but she had secured the rest of the money in a safe deposit box. After recovering her clothes from that horrible dive, she enjoyed the Surf and Soup special at Cybercafe on West 48th Avenue near Time Square. Her minestrone soup positively tasted canned but the surfing was fascinating. She was on instamapper. It was a web site that had a free service to let you follow a telephone that had a GPS tracking app running on it, like the one she had attached to Solomon's limo. Using their computer, she transferred the tracking information to her phone.

As she finished the soup and ate a Wireless Veggie sandwich, she scrolled through the data on her phone looking for any odd stops. The limo started at 10:12 AM, went down 4th Avenue, turned on Houston and made a stop on Broadway right by the Soho Diamond, made a stop several blocks further up Broadway and was parked there for about half an hour, went back to the Diamond and then down East Houston, stopping around 3rd Ave and East Houston for seventeen minutes. Then he went down until FDR drive and then went down FDR straight to Martin Charles. He paused there only ten minutes until going up the Henry Hudson parkway to Riverside Drive and West 120th St and remaining parked there for an hour before starting back down West 120th St. She knew that address. Martin Charles had an account there. The signal stopped as they were heading south on the Henry Hudson. The battery must have died.

That wasn't what she had expected at all. She had expected the route to go to Bloomingdale's. Why was Andrew using Solomon? Perhaps he was just trying to impress the customer but maybe Bridget wasn't at home on Park Avenue any more. He must have finally figured it out. Bridget could never play the game nearly as well as she could. She would always eventually get caught.

Siobhan went through the data again, looking for a pattern. This just wasn't anything close to her usual pattern. It didn't go to the good shopping districts. It didn't cross home once. But it did cross the Diamond twice and it crossed the area around East Houston and Avenue B twice.

Was Bridget going to the Diamond to step out on Andrew already? He was so boring she would have to find somebody sooner or later. No, of all the hotels in Manhattan that's the last she'd go to. Solomon was probably just sent by Andrew for some company business, maybe picking up someone from the Paris or London office.

If Andrew kicked Bridget out for just being an inferior imitation then he would have to tell her about Henry's demise. He was just too goody-goody not to tell her and news like that just wasn't something he'd ever say over the telephone. So which of those areas was one Bridget could be holed up in. Obviously the area around East Houston and Avenue B or Avenue C. Solomon had turned West from Avenue C onto East Houston. It was the one area that was both reasonably priced and residential, so if Bridget wasn't still at 626 Park Avenue she'd check there next.

But not tonight. Tonight she would go to the St. Mark's Hotel right by NYU. It was a little cash only hotel she and Henry used to slip off to. It wasn't the finest place but it was clean, had a private bath and was utterly discrete.

As Siobhan left the Cybercafe on West 48th on Monday evening, it was Tuesday morning in New Zealand. Juliet was being called from her bed. "Come on, Juliet. Get a move on and come see the whales," called Andrew's cousin. "I have a spare dive suit for you to wear." It turned out that Dr. Eirian Gwalchmai was a locally well known marine biologist people called the "Whale lady."

Juliet at first hoped that Aunt Eirian would go away if she pretended she wasn't there. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be working. "I really feel awful. I hardly slept last night. I'm jet lagged out."

"You're missing a chance to see whales in the wild up close and personal."

"You wouldn't want me in a boat with you today. I couldn't keep up." In truth seeing wild whales up close and personal wasn't on her top ten list of things to do.

Eirian sighed. "Alright. Let me give you some advice then. Whatever you're going to do today, do it outside. There's sunblock in the closet. Use it and get as much sunshine as you can. It's nature's way of resetting your body to your new time. When I have to fly, I always take a long walk the next day and I'm right as rain."

Juliet's watch told her that she'd have two or three hours of prime Facebook and texting time before the civilized world went to sleep. It was a beautiful house that was on a hill right over a beach, overlooking a gorgeous blue bay. She took her Blackberry outside in the sun, found a spot with good reception and made the best use of it.


	30. Alone

Alone

He looked out the window of the cab on the way to the deli, alone in a city of eight million people. He knew people from work of course but he had no real friends that he cared about or truly trusted. Siobhan, Bridget, Catherine and Olivia had taken away the last bit of his trust in human beings. He had years trying to build Martin Charles with Olivia. Just when they were getting somewhere this April hit. Now the business was someone else's and his former business partner Claudia was out on bail trying to make a deal with the prosecutors to turn state's evidence on his first ex wife.

His ex-wife having a secret lesbian relationship with his partner hurt. That one was completely unexpected. He did know about Olivia's sexual orientation and as long as she kept her private life from interfering with the office he thought nothing of it. But this was shockingly unprofessional of her. If she'd been a man then ... it would still have been just as shockingly unprofessional. You just don't go behind your partner's back and sleep with his ex-wife.

The whole month of April had just been one horrible revelation after another, each one seeming to get greater and worse. It was only the 23rd of April. One more week to go.

He knew he had was just getting depressed but every day seemed to bring another blow. He had tried just sitting at home, feeding his face and watching the telly. It seemed a very popular thing to do in America and he had to give it a go. It was a bust as far as he was concerned. He only felt better while actively engaged in the act of being hypnotized by the googlebox. He had considered going to some pub, but what would he do there? Drink, watch football matches on their box and eat, just like he did at home only in the same room with strangers. It had seemed like a waste of time even when he was younger. Besides, he could feel that his suit had shrunk somewhat today. He couldn't eat the way he could fifteen years ago without suffering the consequences.

He was drawing a paycheck that was partly on a commission basis. "Pay for performance" Tim had put it. He had no illusions. The odds were extremely high that at some point fairly soon Tim would have no need of him. What would he do then? He vowed he wouldn't go crazy like Mel Edison in "The Prisoner of Second Avenue." He would start over. His personal preference would be to get another PhD but he knew he would have to concentrate on making money.

He remembered something he had been told by an executive in a large hotel company. "No success makes up for failure in the home." He had said agreeing words then but he hadn't meant them. It was eight years ago, right as things were disintegrating with Catherine. He didn't want to be bothered having Catherine berate him because he wasn't there for Juliet's third grade Dr. Seuss play because he was trying to close a multi-million dollar deal. Now he wasn't so sure. They say the first 20 million dollars had been the hardest. He struggled so hard to make it, and then he had to give half of it away to Catherine. What had been the point?

How much was he going to have to give to Siobhan? Could he really have to give half his property to Siobhan? Would he really have to give 14% of everything he earned over the next 21 years to Bridget's baby? How many dollars would he have to make just to keep one?

For Bridget, tonight was more exciting than when she went to the Senior Prom with Mark Frykowski. This was almost a date. Well if he came it would be actually came. Unless he had some other reason for coming.

She got off at five and cleaned up as well as she could. Then she dressed in a new jumper and blouse and tried to do her makeup. There was no makeup table in her room. She had to use the small bathroom mirror. She could just feel she wasn't getting it right with just one bare bulb almost directly above her head and the small exterior window but she didn't have any alternative.

There was a sudden knock on the door and then Moe's voice. "He's here."

"Thank you. Tell him I'll be right down." She gave up on improving her makeup and then slipped on her good high heel shoes. Or, she tried to slip them on. She could have gotten them on if she really wanted to but they were definitely too tight. Had her feet grown that much in a week? Siobhan's feet had always been half a size smaller. They must be one of her pairs she told herself, knowing that she had always managed them before. She wasn't even into her second trimester. Had her feet really blimped up that much? No, she said it had to be from standing and eating too much salt. All that corned beef and pastrami and pickles she had been craving.

She put her clothes and makeup away and slipped into her practical shoes before going downstairs.

He was sitting at a table, so wonderfully proper looking. He was heaven on Earth and temptation itself all in one. She sat and put her hand in his. It seemed so tiny in his large, strong and yet smoothly soft hand. "Hi," she said, smiling.

"Hi. How are you?"

"So glad to see you."

Moe stepped over, putting menus in front of them. "The Chef recommends tonight the lamb kebab with Greek rice pilaf and the house salad."

Bridget nodded approvingly to Andrew and he turned to Moe. "I'll take the Chef's recommendation."

"Could I have the broccoli instead of the salad?"

"Of course, Madame. And what would the lady like to drink?"

Bridget smiled. "Orange juice."

"And for the gentleman?"

He briefly considered a beer but thought better of it. He had about five pounds to lose and a beer would not help. Besides he now understood why she never drank and didn't want it in the house. "A pot of tea, please."

Moe nodded and took the menus and then brought a loaf of still warm from the oven pita bread with garlic pesto.

Andrew ripped off a corner and dipped it in. "Broccoli?"

Bridget nodded. "It's the cravings. They drive you nuts."

"Like what else?"

"Salty food. I've had a lot of pastrami and corned beef. Dark greens like kale and mustard greens and beans like white beans. And I am going up the wall for milk or cheese and there's none here because it's a meat kosher kitchen."

"You're probably short on something. Have you been taking good prenatal vitamins?"

She shook her head. "Haven't been paid yet."

"I'll have Claudine get a pharmacy to deliver some tomorrow to you."

"That's really sweet, and very much appreciated.

"You know, this bread is really good."

"Thanks!"

"So how was your day?"

"Pretty good. They didn't take very much at all for the blood test and they said that if they couldn't get any fetal material to come back in three weeks and they'd try again and it would be no charge. And in the afternoon I baked. I enjoy baking." She looked at him. "So when will you be going to the lab?"

"They already have the sample, from Siobhan's set."

She nodded. "Speaking of Siobhan, Sophie saw in the Times about Henry. They said about one of the boys finding him and calling 911. That's just horrible."

Andrew nodded. "It was Dash. He's really shook up. Becks is almost as bad. Tim is out, I guess until the twins can settle down."

Bridget nodded. "Family comes first, and it's your chance to show him how good you really are. Please tell do Tim how much I cared for Gemma and that I am available to help in any way he wants."

"I will. Do you really think she did it?"

Bridget nodded, chewing a broccoli flower. "Right to the back of the head is just like her. She could miss a man sized target at three yards."

"And you were better."

She laughed. "It was easy. All I had to do is follow Dad's directions and not do any macho stupid stuff like all his drinking buddy cops did. He would take me to the police range and he'd bet the other officers that his little daughter in a pink dress could outshoot them with their own gun and I usually did. It was fun then. We would go for chocolate ice cream after. He was so proud of me. But that was ... before."

"Siobhan didn't talk about him much. What happened to him?"

"Siobhan started to hate him. I'm not sure why. And then he was killed in the line of duty about a year after we graduated High School. Shot in the face by a crack cocaine dealer named Lamont Pride with an outstanding warrant for another shooting in North Carolina. December 13, 1998. He'd been busted for shooting someone else in November and even with the warrant the Brooklyn DA allowed him to be released on bail for selling coke because they said the paperwork on the warrant didn't require him to be extradited to North Carolina."

"I'm sorry."

"That's the day I started hating guns."

"I'm sorry for bringing up sad memories." He almost suggested that they should move to Cardiff where they don't have guns like in America but then remembered the state of their non-relationship. It felt so awkward. He changed subjects. "So how is the pregnancy going?"

Bridget shrugged. "I guess as well as can be expected. My appetite is coming back. But I have a lot of odd side effects. My shoes don't fit. Some parts are very ... sensitive. And I have a lot of craving for what no pharmacy or a restaurant can serve."

Moe brought the salads and a tray of dressings. "House lemon vinaigrette or honey mustard."

Andrew raised an eyebrow at Bridget as he put a suspicion of the vinaigrette on his salad and ate slowly. "You mean ..."

Bridgette nodded as she inhaled the broccoli. "I'm already going to have to go to Confession just about what I am thinking about you."

Andrew shook his head. "How long has it been?"

"Since Saturday the 14th, about 11:00 in the morning. And it was glorious."

Andrew nodded. "It was indeed. But I can't take a chance on her counter-claiming I am being unfaithful."

"This is just so absolutely, totally unfair. I don't think I have ever like been so so badly in my LIFE and ... you can't."

Andrew nodded politely as he took a bite of salad, wondering if he would take her up on it if it weren't for the divorce. After all, she couldn't get any more pregnant. But did he want to get more involved than he already was? He could feel himself plunging almost out of control as if the universe was sucking him along and would spit him out at an unknown point later. Did he want to swim against everything or just allow himself to be blown along?

Fortunately Andrew's wonderings were interrupted by Moe bringing their dinners. Each plate had two skewers of lamb marinated in a batter of almond, garlic, ginger, and coconut alternated with grilled peppers and thick chunks of charbroiled lamb, marinated in salt and pepper over a generous bed of rice pilaf. "This looks really good."

"Bridget taught Sam the recipe."

He looked at her, surprised. "Really."

She smiled, nodding. "It's from that Mideast cooking course I did a couple of months ago."

He tried a bite. "This is good!"

"Thank you. They had some frozen lamb left over from Passover and I knew just what to do with it."

"You're going to Mass. You're going to confession? That's new."

She shrugged. "I couldn't as Siobhan."

"Why?"

"You'd know right off."

"But why start?"

"Because it's what I want to. As part of NA we are supposed to surrender to your higher power as you understand God. I know you were baptised as Anglican even though I never saw you practice it. I know Juliet is Jewish. But I was born Irish Catholic and I will die Irish Catholic."

Andrew frowned. "Juliet isn't Jewish. I don't think she's been to a synagogue in her life."

"Andrew, Catherine is Jewish."

He shrugged. "So what?"

"Moe, " Bridget said, waiving her hand in the air.

He came on over, now with a napkin draped over his arm. "Is everything to your satisfaction, Madame?"

"Moe, Juliet's birth mother was born Jewish. She even had a Bar Mitzvah before she got a nose job, dyed her hair blonde and cut herself away from her people. So Juliet is Jewish, isn't she?"

Moe nodded. "According to any Orthodox Rabbi, she's completely Jewish."

Bridget nodded. "See."

"Although, according to a Reform Rabbi she isn't."

"See."


	31. The bottom of the hour

The Bottom of the Hour

"Think of it as a field of Three dimensional points in which time is the unique index to each point. Even two identical moments differ in their index time and so the index time may be a function of the predictive results," the lecturer in Andrew's numerical analysis class said. He was in a pack of other students following her down a long corridor after lecture and he was carefully noting every word every word she said. It was absolutely fascinating. "Everything that happens is distinct, not just because it is a different event in three dimensional space but because it uniquely serial numbered by time. Even two identical seeming events aren't because the time they happen in makes them unique. Thus the time of the event becomes another input variable to predicting the outcome of future events."

What she said made perfect sense. The question was how to operationally apply it.

The other students seemed to gradually disappear as he continued following, devouring every word. "Model Output Statistics or MOS," she said, "is used to accuracy is generally far better than either a pure statistical model or a pure numerical model. The MOS technique combines the two, using suitable numerical forecasts based on the relevant models and then using regression equations in statistical post-processing to clarify post-process output from numerical forecast models."

Finally he was alone with her in the dark hallway as all the other students had disappeared. Bridget was the lecturer in the class. It was a dark hallway and she just looked so good, he had to hold her.

He found himself standing on one foot and tickling her with his bare foot where she'd like it the most with the other foot, and she did like it. She leaned on him, kissing him, holding his hand to tender parts and squeezing it to show what she wanted.

"Let me take you where it's private," she said.

They went around several corners. Finally they were in a room. There was a glass wall between them and a dining room. He thought he recognized people there but as she closed the curtain someone that looked sort of like Moe but with a beard closed the curtains on the other side.

They lay down on the floor, undressing. She looked so heavenly except for a large and bloody gash below her belly button. It looked like a deep puncture but it didn't seem to be bothering her so he carried on anyway.

As things drew to a marvelous completion he woke up, startled. It took a moment for him to realize that it wasn't real. He was alone in bed now.

It hadn't been a bad dream. No, not at all. He wondered how much of what Bridget said in the dream had been his subconscious working on the problem of correctly interpolating the financial data he wanted to analyze and how much had been randomly associated Babel. He took some quick notes, unable to decide. He would check them later.

It was a little before 5:45 AM. He looked outside. The sun was just coming up. The weather looked nicer outside. As he showered he kept wondering how to quantify the season of the year without making a 365 day jump between December 31st and January 1st. Of course he could make the jump any time during the year but he needed ... no, as he scrubbed under his arms he decided upon a mathematical function to represent time. It was a simple one. The year would be a bell shaped curve. But when to center the top of the curve? That remained a puzzle as he brushed his teeth.

Searching through the fridge produced disappointing results. The fresh fruit was not any more. He threw out the last of the party food from last week and quickly tossed the containers in the dishwasher. He would have to go marketing.

When was the last time he had to market and cook by himself? He wasn't even sure where the nearest market was. How many years had it been? The last time he remembered Juliet had been perhaps three and was sick with the measles.

The time to focus time the curve on would be related to the seasons of production and the seasons of consumption. That would vary by commodity. He would need the information on both from a historical standpoint. He smiled. This was using Model Input Statistics. That was an idea he'd never heard of.

He googled the term. There were no references for it. But he did run into a paper on the ACM website entitled "Input modeling: input model uncertainty: why do we care and what should we do about it?" The description looked absolutely fascinating and for $15 for a PDF of a 2,000 page paper, $42 for a student membership with unlimited digital library usage or $198 for a professional membership he filled in Juliet's student information and quickly ordered it.

It was such a lovely day with a gentle mist of rain that he went out to hail his own cab. As he stood there, he failed to notice the person across the street watching him. At first glance she would look like an elderly woman, with grey hair, a cane, old lady hat, an umbrella shading her face, old lady wrap around sun glasses and utterly forgettable old lady clothes. Yet if he had looked closely enough the face would have looked oddly familiar lines to it, the same face he had looked at in Steinberg's Deli over dinner the night before.

Siobhan stood by the construction across the street at 625 Park Avenue and watched the entrance to 626. She was nearly invisible in her outfit that people look away from rather than at. She had been there for an hour already.

She knew from Henry that Juliet was living with them, yet she didn't come out for school. She also failed to see her inferior copy. She called the apartment with a cash only pre-paid cell and only the machine answered. An hour later she called again and an hour after that. No answer and no Bridget.

As she turned away and walked to the 68 St. Hunter College subway station on Lexington Avenue she felt certain her quarry was not to be found here. She made one last call to his answering machine and this time she left a message. Then she took the SIM card out of her phone, wadded it up with her chewing gum and threw it in a trash can. As she followed a line of students down the grey stairs of the subway station she knew exactly where she would look next.

Siobhan was not at all on Andrew's mind during the cab ride to the office. He was torn between fascination with the paper from the ACM that he was reading on his iPad and the increasingly anxious calls of his stomach. He almost considered stopping by the Deli on the way to the office but wasn't sure if they would even be open. Besides, he wanted to be in on time.

He squeezed into the same elevator up as Claudine. They exchanged courteous pleasantries about the improved weather but no more. It wasn't as good as beating her but she couldn't say he was late at least. Once inside the company and out of the earshot of any competitors, she asked "Heard anything from Tim?"

Andrew shook his head.

He went into his office. His message light was blinking. He played it first just in case it was something personal even though he was quite confident it was Tim. Then he got Claudine and played it on the speaker phone.

"Andrew, this is Tim. Things are a bit better. They got some sleep at least. We're going to take them to a child psychiatrist today and to talk to the lawyers about custody. They won't leave me. We had to take them to bed with us. Then Becks wet the bed. I am too old for this. We're going to need to get around the clock help here. You never realize how much a mother does for her children until you're trying to do it yourself. Give me a call at 9:00 ... or when you get in. We need to go over the plan of the day. Bye."

He almost sounded human in these middle of the night calls. No phony military posturing, just a tired grandfather who was worried about his grandchildren.

Claudine nodded. "I'll print his calendar for the week."

As she went out, the last of Andrew's thoughts of sharing custody with Bridget went out the door with her. He could not do everything, and just getting Juliet through High School and safely in college would be more than difficult enough. He would yet again just be the financial father, perhaps with weekend visitation rights when his work allowed it and he hated himself for it. There had

He phoned Tim's home office. It didn't answer. He tried the house line. That answered. It was a black woman's voice. "Hello."

"Hi, this is Andrew. Is Tim there?"

"This Andrew?"

"Yes."

"Just one sec, Hun."

Andrew heard footsteps and then two young voices saying "Did not" and "Did too" back and forth. As he listened, Claudine returned with the calendar and some notes. Andrew thanked her and asked her to close the door. Finally Tim was on the line. "Hello."

"Hi Tim. How are you?"

"Yes, more coffee. I wasn't expecting you so calling so early."

"It's 8:00 AM. You said call after I got in."

"Call me on the secured office line at 0830."

Military security. The posturing was back. But he would follow it to the letter. Every day he stayed at Martin Charles would help him to get a position elsewhere and would distance himself from his past mistakes.

He spent the half hour going downstairs to the little shop that called itself a deli. He bought two apples, two bananas and ordered four slices of dry toast. Even Juliet should approve of that breakfast.

After he had finished two slices of toast, it was the bottom of the hour and time to call.

It was evening in New Zealand and Juliet was hungry. She had spent the morning on line and then she had napped and eaten the rest of the Weet-bix. She did her laundry in the afternoon.

By then she was hungry. She went into the freezer for something to nuke and found frozen fruits, vegetables flour and cheese. Not neatly prepared packages with cooking instructions but large freezer bags that Eirian had only marked with the contents. The fridge was surprisingly bare. Eggs, skim milk, olive oil, salad dressing, tofu, cheese, a couple of loaves of whole grain bread along with fresh fruits and vegetables and a couple of bottles of wine. Not one bite of meat was in the kitchen.

She considered calling for a pizza but then remembered how far they were from the nearest town and that she had absolutely no idea where she was or where to call. Nobody was going to deliver out here. All the American money she had would do no good.

She scraped the bottom of some cashew butter to make herself a cashew butter sandwich and ate it along with raw carrots. As she ate it, she felt rather useless. She wouldn't have even learned how to do her own laundry if she hadn't been forced to in drug rehab. She had no idea how to cook anything that wasn't pop in the nuke until it dings. She had never worked to earn a dollar in her life. Almost every place she'd ever gone had been chosen in advance and planned by Catherine or Andrew. It was like she was a little doll, and when they had dressed and posed her and she didn't look like they had intended they punished her instead of them taking any responsibility for having put her in the situation in the first place. Now she was stuck here because of what Siobhan was doing. She didn't deserve the sentence of banishment for the crimes of others.

Siobhan put her in a private girl's boarding school to keep her out of trouble. What a joke! All anyone ever did there was get stoned, any way they could. Well those girls who weren't also sleeping with each other. There was enough of that too.

The boarding school was the closest she'd ever felt to being in a prison. It was much worse than being in rehab. At least rehab was for a short, defined period and they talked to her, about her problems. She had a three year sentence in that boarding school with no chance of parole or early release. So what else would she do? So she got caught mixing Benadryl from the school commissary and hand sanitizer. They made such a big deal of it but every girl there would use salt from the dinner table and Purell that was in the dispensers by every door and then would filter out the gook. It was stronger than vodka and when mixed with Rock Star or Red Bull wasn't a bad drink and she could always drink enough of it to get her to that wonderful state of not remembering. She just got unlucky and was caught. Then when she went to live this time on Park Avenue Andrew always kept the liquor cabinet locked, just like a big sign that said "We can't trust Juliet."

The wine in the fridge wasn't a temptation. There was always a sour taste to it and she could never get enough down to do the job. She'd always preferred hard liquor mixed with something strongly caffeinated. That way she didn't just get tired but could keep on drinking until she reached that glorious state of blackout.

Eirian had an expresso machine so Juliet started a batch and began looking around to put in it. It didn't take her long to find the cabinet with the whiskey and gin.

She sat and looked and looked and looked at the open cabinet. She hadn't had a drink in ... three weeks ... since that last party at London's house. And then it was the party before at Andrea's. She hadn't drunk in the hotel even when Andrew had and the hotel mini-bar was well stocked. She could control herself. She wouldn't risk Andrew going through the bill and finding out. He would do such strange stuff like that, spend thousands of dollars on something and then go through bills on the off chance of an error.

What would Andrew do if they knew she had been drinking again? She had been grounded and double grounded and triple grounded and then banished from the country. She knew exactly what he would do. He would say she was an alcoholic just like her dear mother and would sentence her to rehab.

She knew she wasn't an alcoholic. Everybody drank. It was just a part of High School. Couldn't parents understand that? Drinking was the thing parents did when they had fun. Even Andrew could have fun then. Why couldn't she without everyone saying she had a teen-age drinking problem when she knew she didn't

She heard a car pulling up the driveway. She quickly closed the cabinet. Eirian walked in. "Sorry I am so late. A pod of pilot whales was beached. We had to try to save as many as we could and then to necropsy the ones we couldn't." She poured herself a shot of expresso and put some chocolate syrup in it. "You been drinking this?"

Juliet shook her head. "It sounded good and then I changed my mind."

"Good. You'd just be up all night."

She nodded agreeingly. Eirian seemed very nice but she was Andrew's cousin and so Juliet couldn't trust her one bit. Anything she said would probably be going straight back to Andrew and the last thing she needed was any sort of reports of her causing problems. He'd keep her stuck in New Zealand forever.


	32. The Edge of Darkness

The Edge of Darkness

It hadn't been a bad day, Andrew thought in the cab on the way back home. It had been a very long, tiring day but all in all successful. Amazingly, Tim had agreed with his recommendation on selling short on crude oil. Perhaps agreed hadn't been precisely the right word. "Your neck is riding on it. If you're wrong, I will nail you to the wall by your balls" had been his precise words. But that was as good as he could hope for.

In a strange way, Andrew liked Tim. He certainly respected him. Tim understood organization well. He knew laying out logical plans and systematically reaching his objective. He saw the world as a war fought on a chess board, and he fought very careful battles of attrition to win over his opponents and finally capture them. But that strength was also his weakness. Andrew had long ago seen through such foolishness. He saw the world as a game of Go, where the objective is to control as much territory as possible.

His standing within Martin Charles was hardly firm. He needed to capture that territory and hold it firmly in his control. It would take something spectacular like a 20% profit in two months to gain stability at Martin Charles. Without it, all his hard work making his company would surely be lost. By weighing the chance of gain against the real cost of failure, pressing Tim was little risk, far less than putting his own money on the line.

He spent several quite pleasant hours making a PowerPoint for the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns pension fund. It had even provided him the excuse to read further from the article he had purchased earlier. As he read he became more excited by the overall idea but was quite certain that he would need to hire someone to do the actual programming. He knew where to get the raw information. He knew the math. He could even work out solving the equation in a spreadsheet. But the process would be ridiculously laborious. He needed a way to comb through mountains of data.

Instead of stopping by the Deli he went directly home and made his personal phone calls in the cab. Solomon said that he found John DeLario's family and would speak to them tomorrow. The support line for the Eye Q detective agency said that their detective was making excellent progress and hoped to be through with the field work tomorrow and should have a report to him on Thursday.

He gave the cabbie a nice tip and greeted the doorman.

Inside the apartment, the groceries Claudine had ordered for him were nicely sitting on the kitchen counter. He took off his tie and suit jacket, quite sure that he could now handle bachelor life. He looked around the living room and saw the days of dust and mess. Tomorrow he would have Claudine hire a reputable maid service for keeping the apartment cleaned and to do the laundry.

After putting the food away and microwaving a ready-made dinner that had been thoroughly irradiated by the manufacturer so it could remain fresh without being frozen for years, he checked his e-mail on his personal computer. To his surprise, an icon was on the screen that said he had five phone messages. He rarely had even one message.

The first four messages were only a few seconds of street noise. The fifth was from a very familiar voice. "Andrew, this is your wife. I am coming for you, but first I am going to take away from you absolutely everyone you care about. Only then you'll know the pain you caused me. Don't think I don't know you or all your secrets. I'm your wife after all."

He tried to take it calmly and realistically. He had guessed that the chance that Siobhan would be coming for them was all too high. He had even predicted it and had sent Juliet away for safety. But it was entirely another thing to hear her say it.

What time was it in New Zealand? Four in the morning? Noon? He wasn't sure. He would compose a message to Juliet's blackberry and e-mail her the voice clip. She wouldn't believe it otherwise. He rang Bridget, but it went to voice mail. He wanted to go down to the Deli and finding her, but knew that was the last thing he should do. Siobhan could well be watching him or have hired a private investigator to track him. The detective agency would think nothing of a concerned wife wanting them to tail a husband that she suspected of being unfaithful.

He looked up the number of deli and called. Moe answered. "Hello, Steinberg's Deli. How may I help you?"

"It's Andrew. Is Bridget there?"

"Hi Andrew. She stepped out a few minutes ago."

"Do you know where she is?"

"She's doing something for Bishop Fitzgerald at her church. Something about a girl's youth meeting. If it's a matter of life and death, I will get her, but ..."

He thought a minute? It was life and death, but panicking everyone wouldn't help either. "No. No. When will she be back?"

"Maybe an hour."

Andrew nodded. "Very well. Please have her call me. It's urgent."

"I'll hang a note on her door to call you and I will tell her. I promise."

"Thank you very much. Thank you."

"No problem. Bye."

He paced up and down. Getting upset wouldn't help. He had to think. He began to compose a note to Juliet but he was afraid that she wouldn't she listen. Would she be like every other teen-ager, utterly sure that she knew best and things couldn't possibly be that bad?

He would keep his focus. He put away laundry. He straightened the living room and washed dishes. Finally the phone rang. He pulled the portable out of his pocket. "Hello?"

It was Bridget. "Andrew, hi. How are you?"

"Fine. OK. Where are you now?"

"My room. Why? What's wrong?"

"I received a death threat from Siobhan."

There was a long silence on the line. "I told you ... she's gone. Can you leave the City?"

"She said she would kill you and Juliet before she kills me."

"But Juliet is safe."

"I'm hoping. But this is too close. I can't go to the Deli any more."

There was a long silence from Bridget. He kept waiting for her to argue or question him or something but she didn't. Finally he had to answer his own question. "Bridget, if I were her and I wanted to find you, I'd have me tailed. I don't know what to do but I don't want to lead her to you."

"No, that sort of makes sense. But I'll be alright."

"How about Buffalo? Or Pittsburg? Some place not too far but where she wouldn't find you. I could pay for it."

"Andrew, I lived my life like a tornado. I would make a disaster in one state so I would just pack my bag and go some place else, sure that a change in geography would change everything and that I could go clean in the next place. It never worked because no matter where I went I was still the same me when I got there. This time, I have to clean up the wreckage of my past right where I am. I want to make my life here."

"It's not just your life. If that baby in you is mine then I have half ownership in this endeavor. You have to take this seriously."

She laughed for a moment. "That's very sweet of you. And I do take it seriously. When I found out she was alive I went to tell you how crazy she is. I know the depths of her insanity better than anyone alive."

"I was married to her for five years."

"And I lived with her for over twenty. You never saw her at her worst. Take her threat seriously. Keep Solomon with you night and day until she's arrested. But I prayed for a long time about this at the church tonight and I know deep inside that staying right here is what I have to do."

He wondered if that was supposed to make sense. He knew that legally there was nothing he could do. Even if he had legal proof in hand that the baby was his he knew he had no legal tie to her. She could and would do whatever she wanted no matter how crazy it was and that he wouldn't have any control if he drove her away or alienated her. He couldn't even tell her to listen to logic instead of hopes from the skies. He thought carefully, trying to come up with the right words. "I don't want to fight," he finally said in the most calm tone he could summon. "I am just very concerned. You need to listen."

"So am I." She paused, obviously choosing her words carefully as well. "Andrew, you like making proposals and selling people on things. I am staying here but I do want to be safe. Come up with a sound proposal on how to do both those things and I will very much listen."


	33. Mesmerized

Mesmerized

Life in New Zealand had been a lesson in the English language for Juliet. She found herself having to unlearn and relearn to communicate.

She wiped the windscreen of Eirian's ute as Eirian stood by the bowser and filled it with petrol. Last week she would have said she was wiping the windshield as as Eirian filled her SUV with gas. They were at the Whangarei PAK'nSAVE. Then Eirian used a fuel docket to get some money off the price. Juliet would have once called it a discount coupon.

A yellow sign by the stoor door read "ANZAC DAY - Weds 25 April Open From 1PM." She knew that was why they were shopping today. Tomorrow was supposed to be a fund raiser party at Erian's house somehow related to everything, fighting back in the war against the local marine life that was being waged by overfishing and pollution.

The words may have been different but the yellow and black logo of the big box store was comforting. "No gimmicks. Just best prices" read one sign and "Really big savings" with a little stick man jumping for joy. That spoke Juliet's language. She didn't know whales but she did know stores. They went to the produce department first. Onions were $1.99 for a 2 kilogram bag. She knew she should have paid more attention when they covered the metric system. Did that mean a one pound bag or a four pound bag? She had to heft the bag to be sure.

After stocking up on just the right produce, cheese, biscuits along with ordinary items like sanitary towels and whole meal bread, they headed to a sign for the sign that read yellow and black sign that read "MASSIVE BEER & WINE SALE!" But it wasn't beer or wine that Eirian pulled from the shelf. It was a couple of bottles of Bundaberg Overproof rum. Juliet was simply mesmerized by the polar bear at the top of the label and the 57.5% alcohol at the other end of the bottle. Why would there be a polar bear on a rum bottle, she wondered, trying to guess how this would compare to the kick in hand sanitizer.

"It's for gunfire breakfast. It's a tradition on Anzac Day," Eirian said. "The gunfire breakfast of coffee with rum in it that soldiers used to get the courage to go into battle."

Juliet deliberately looked away and did her very best pretend to have utter disinterest in the bottles in the shopping trolley. If she pretended they weren't there then they wouldn't be there in her world.

Mercifully, unbelievably, her phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and talked as Eirian paid and packed up the order. Everyone else was also packing their own order. She guessed that was why they called it PAK'nSAVE. It was Andrew's number. "Hi, Daddy."

"Hi, Juliet. How are you?"

"Alright. We're at the market. What's wrong?"

"Why do you say anything is wrong?"

"Because it's the first time you called since I've been here."

There was a long pause on the line. "I had a death threat from Siobhan. She says she is going to kill you and Bridget and then kill me."

It left Juliet stunned as she put the packed bags in the shopping trolley and followed Eirian out. "She couldn't mean it. She enjoys torturing people ... But she couldn't ..." Juliet didn't even want to use the word "murder" in public. But as much as she wanted to dismiss it she knew the truth inside her. Someone had murdered Henry Butler. The New York Times even had an article on it. As much as an asshole as Henry was, who else would hate him enough to kill him?

"I'm looking at your Facebook page," Andrew said. "It tells just where you are."

She bit her lip. Of course it did. But there was no point in arguing with him. "I'll erase it all. I'll do it in the car."

"Keep your head down. They have to catch her sooner or later."


	34. Prey

Prey

The house had burned down and Mamaí was lying in a pit of ashes nestled in a thorny cavern of long dead thorny shrub roses. She lit her cigarette from the flames around her and puffed away on it. She looked like a white frog, her neck and body were so immensely round, with big, blue veins on her arms. She had Bridgette's composition book, wadding up pages and tossing them in the still glowing fire. "That will not be published before the new time of grief."

"Please Mamaí, no," Bridget said. "Why can't I keep it?" She knew why. Her mother intensely disliked anything being written down about her. "Read it. It's not you. It's me."

Her mother shook her head as she ripped out huge sections and tossed them in. "We set you free. Fear of life, of itself, but no more pain."

"But it's mine. I wrote it. I want to be a writer."

"We know a lion does not make you published here."

" Mamaí, please! Just give me time. I can get better."

"We always have time or just do not. We do not have different or more years to live." She tossed the entire composition book into the fire and then lit her next cigarette from it. Camels. Oh how Bridget hated that smell.

As Bridget cried, her mother pointed to the wetness at the crotch of her jumper. She rose, her pallid, waddling huge self, and slapped Bridget hard across her face. "This is for your first shame. It is not be published. Cry, cry. There are no more child's Saturdays and Sundays, Bridget."

Bridget ran. As fast as she could she ran. She ran away to school. Mrs. Euchner, her eighth grade English teacher, was walking down the hallway. She was by her locker, her one private place in the universe. "Mrs. Euchner," she said. "Do you have a minute?"

"Yes, Bridget."

"I was thinking, maybe the school could get mail delivery to the students lockers. Like post office boxes. They could slip letters right in. It would encourage students to write if they knew their mail wasn't always being read."

Mrs. Euchner nodded. "An interesting idea."

Bridget looked at her locker and there was a black tar on it.

"Don't touch that," said Mrs. Grunau the science teacher. "It's highly aromatic and acostic," but it was already too late.

Bridget tried to wipe her fingers off on her jumper but the tar just spread and spread, seeming to grow thicker and stickier with each attempt to wipe it off. The whole bottom of her jumper was covered and as her hand was covered and the foul smelling blackness began to crawl up her arm she screamed and screamed.

Her heart pounded as she took in the world around her. The past is the past. It isn't real because it isn't now.

She checked the time. Quarter after six. She could have tried to sleep some more but needed to get the night out of her head so she could have a smile while making sandwiches.

She said her morning prayers and read on her phone from a copy of Narcotics Anonymous that she had downloaded. She didn't like reading on her phone. It was hard on her eyes. But it was what she had at the moment. After she got paid she'd buy a real book but for now she just read the story of the Indian addict in Life on Life's Terms and then she turned to page 100, Just for Today.

She took her vitamins and calcium tablet, showered, dressed and went downstairs to make sure the sandwich counter was in perfect shape. It would shine. Everything would be perfectly arranged and she made sure a fresh stock of everything was available. Of course there was always a bit towards the front that was rather unattractive, kosher salami that was curling and had sweated little beads of liquid fat and olive load where the olives had began to shrink. No customer would want to eat that, so she cleaned it out and disposed of it by scarfing it down.

By the time Moe, Sam and Sophie walked in she was checking the tables for being wiped down and getting the last little bits. Once a day, everything would look right. "Good morning," she said to her employers, feeling ever so much better. Some food and work to distance her from her nightmares always put the world in perspective. She helped Sophie with taking her rain coat off and got the breakfast order

Shortly before the evening rush would start, Bridget took her afternoon break. She was eating two oranges for her snack when an elderly black man in a windbreaker with a grey wool flat cap and a cane over his arm came in and looked around. He had a large cardboard box under his arm. "Bridget Kelly," he said looking at her with an odd accent, not Puerto Rican, not Brazilian she thought but couldn't be sure. She always was so bad at accents. "Yes," she said. He put the box down at her table and sat, handing her the cane. "I am Solomon's papa. He told me to bring you some things."

"You look just like him," she said. It was true. There was a strong resemblance.

He smiled. "Solomon is good boy, smart boy. You listen to him. He knows."

She nodded and looked in the box. There was a note. She took it out and read it.

"Bridget,

Andrew called me last night and told me to do some shopping for you. He said you were going to stay put there. You should run. The police came and took my guns. That's what you need, but here is the closest I can get you. I had my Dad pick it up and deliver it to you in case Siobhan is watching me.

Read the directions and be careful. It's all legal to carry, even here in New York. Phone me if you have any questions.

If it's just a mugger who wants your money, give it to them. Don't fight for money, just for your life.

Solomon"

She rummaged in the box. Her eye went first to something that looked almost like a small fire extinguisher except it said it shot a pound of pepper spray up to 20 feet. She didn't like it. She saw a used looking Winnie the Pooh diaper bag. "Oh, how sweet," she thought, then looked inside. It contained a pepper spray pistol complete with replacement cartridges, nylon holster and practice water cartridges, advertised as designed not to blow back even in a wind. She nodded, and would have to try the water cartridges out in the basement by the washing machine. She also found a little hot red tube sized can of pepper spray made to look like lipstick and a four ounce can of bear repellent pepper spray. She found two books as well. Raising Cane - The Unexpected Martial Art and The Cane as a Weapon. She also found a Big Jammer Door Brace. It was supposed to go under the doorknob and prevent anyone from opening. As old as that door frame was, she wasn't sure if she'd get much more than a warning when it was smashed. Still, it was logical.

She would call Solomon later about how to use several of the items but there was one item in the box that she had no questions about how to use. It was a Gerber 06 combat folder knife.

She thanked Solomon's father and took the box upstairs. There she slipped the bear spray into the generous pocket of her jumper. She wore the diaper bag as she walked in the pleasantly misty air to the synagogue where the NA meeting that evening and actually felt a bit safer knowing she had at least some protection.

She had killed twice before. Macawi had been a desperate struggle and a shock but she had long decided that she would defend herself against him if it came to that. She wondered if she could hurt her own sister though, even as twisted as Siobhan had become.

Bridget was so enthralled by how tiny the Meseritz Synagogue was and by the neoclassical architecture that she didn't notice the old woman by the bar across the street. If she had looked past the grey hair, umbrella and baggy clothes she would have noticed it was her own face looking at her. Siobhan had realized she couldn't look every place all over the neighborhood she suspected Bridget was in at once but she could look at the one place she was most likely to go to conveniently one by one and that was Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Siobhan was so excited she was salivating. Her prey was actually in sight. Yet this wasn't how she had planned on taking her, no not so publicly on a street like this. She had a better plan, one that would bring her closer to the rest of her targets.


	35. Her Mother's Daughter

Her Mother's Daughter

"Wakey, wakey," Eirian said, standing over her, rocking her with her foot.

Juliet moaned, her head hurting. She found herself to be not in bed but on the bathroom floor. This was a good thing as she had to puke and felt too shaky to walk. Crawling was a much better option. With painful heaving, she emptied her stomach in the toilet and groaned. The world was not feeling very good today. She tried to think but couldn't.

Unfortunately Eirian didn't seem to be at all sympathetic. In fact, she seemed quite cross. "What all did you have last night?"

"Just some left over gunner's breakfast." After the party, Juliet remembered pouring the undrunk portions into one of the cups and drinking. It had smelled so good. Just a drink or two couldn't hurt, she thought. She hoped that was all. She was so tired she just collapsed back on the floor.

Eirian pulled a strip of Allerid C tablets out of her pocket. "What about these?"

Oh no, Juliet realized. She found that. What else did she know? "You threw them out. I saw them in the trash."

"That doesn't mean I want you taking them. So how many did you take last night?"

She stared blankly at Eirian. "I ... don't ... "

"It was a pack of 30. I used two tablets and that was it. I remember the day. I almost never get allergies. They expired last year so I threw them out. There are seven tablets missing."

Juliet didn't know what to say. The whole world seemed to be closing in on her. She just wanted to curl up and cry. She didn't remember taking any pills, but then she didn't remember falling asleep on the bathroom floor. She just shook her head.

"Are you denying that you took them?"

"I ... can't remember."

"Are you denying throwing the plate at me?"

"What!"

"Are you denying saying you were going to kill me?"

"I would never ..."

Eirian pulled her phone out of her pocket and played a blurry video recording. "You had better not go to sleep. I will cut you to pieces if you do."

Juliet began to cry. "Oh my god, please help me." She ran in her room and slammed the door. It was her voice and her face saying it on the recording, but she had no memory of it.

Eirian followed her in. "I can't help you, Juliet. I'm sorry. This is way beyond me. I've got a foundation to run. I'm already behind on my research. We desperately need the money Andrew is sending to keep you here but he should have known I am not a rehab clinic and won't put up with crap like that."

Juliet turned. "Daddy didn't know I am using again. Honest."

"I can't believe you. I'm going to have to send you back."

"You can't do that."

"Oh yes I can and I will. I won't deal with a derro boonerette here on drunkabout. I had rumpig boyfriends before and that was quite enough."

Juliet looked Eirian straight in the eye. "Dad's second wife is threatening to kill him. He sent me here to keep me safe."

Eirian shook her head. "That's a lame one."

Juliet saw her phone. She pulled up the text from three days ago and handed it to Eirian. "Read it. He sent this when she shot her lover."

Eirian read it. "Henry butler murdered. Stay put. Stay hidden." It was somewhat surprising. Still, she shook her head. "This could be anyone and mean anything."

"Call him," Juliet shouted. "Use my phone!" Then she paused, realizing how she must look and sound. As angry and as irritable as she felt she knew she had to control it. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for shouting at you. I'm sorry about what I did last night. I don't remember doing it. If he doesn't tell you he sent me here because Siobhan is a murderer then I promise I'll start packing."

Eirian took the phone and walked out.

Juliet looked up at the ceiling. She could feel herself shaking. "God, if you're there, if you're even real, please help me. I made another mess. I can't stop making messes. Just please help me. I can't do more to Daddy than I already have."

Juliet felt so jealous about how people like Eirian and Andrew could just have one or two and then just stop and have a good time. Why did she always keep getting stoned or drunk off her ass and waking up in strange places when she didn't want to?

As she looked up at the ceiling and asked why, she knew the answer. It was a reason she had been afraid to even whisper to herself. She was her mother's daughter and she had a real problem.


	36. Communication

Communication

Andrew was livid. "I could just smack her." He paced back and forth in his office with Bridget on the speaker phone, admiring the two new high speed computers he had installed.

"But it's human," Bridget said as she relaxed on the bed in her room, resting her sore feet and talking to Andrew on her Droid. "Physical violence would be totally counter-productive. It would demonize you in her eyes and she would then see herself as a martyr and if she told her teachers or the police you'd be dealing with the courts and Child Protective Services. You really don't want that."

"I can't just let her get away with this. Especially not now."

"No you can't. But you can discipline her in ways that are more effective and won't cause you long term problems. What would hurt her the most, something you can reach out and do to her right from where you're sitting? What would hurt a teen-age girl the most?"

He sat, thinking. "Suspend her credit cards?"

"Worse, even worse than that."

Then it hit him. "Her Blackberry."

"Exactly. Have your cousin take her phone and her computer away and then only give access back if she behaves well for the day. But remember she'll be even more bored and frustrated and angry and she'll still have the same problems that led her to that binge. You've got to fix that problem or the next time it could be far worse."

"What, another round of designer detox?"

Bridget thought ... "That's certainly a possibility and it would be better to put her in detox in New Zealand than to have her fly home with Siobhan still out there. But why is she drinking and drugging in the first place?"

Andrew shook his head as he pulled up his notes and scanned them, utterly baffled. "It makes no sense. When I was her age maybe I'd quaff a pint at a friend's house while watching a football match on the telly. I'd never do something so stupid."

"You're not her. Don't make the mistake of thinking she will react like you will or even will react logically."

He sat, thinking long and hard. She was right, all too right. "How do I stop her from destroying herself?"

"You can't control her."

He switched his keyboard/video/mouse switch so his database server was on screen and looked at the configurations against the checklist in his notes. Finally everything seemed to be in order. "Well what do I do?"

"For just the next few weeks? Keep her away from it. If your cousin hadn't waved it right under her nose she might well have stayed clean. Have your cousin just get it out of the house and keep Juliet busy. She likes people but has a tough time with getting good ones and keeping them. If there were some good, sensible people around her age that would help. For long term help, if you just lock her up in rehab without her being ready she may rebel as soon as she gets out. She has to realize her life is out of control and unmanageable because of her using."

"She sounded pretty beat."

"I hope so. The sooner she surrenders the better."

Andrew just shook his head hopelessly as he went through the checklist on everything he needed to load on his analysis server. "Will you call her? I am so lost here."

"Of course."

"Thanks! Tell me how it goes."

After a quick trip down the hall to the bathroom, Bridget lay back down and called. Eventually, the phone answered. "Hello?"

"Bridget?"

"Yes, Sweetie. How are you?"

It was still a chilly Autumn morning in New Zealand. Juliet was sitting outside looking at the beach and the fog over the water. "I feel so stupid."

"I left a lot of wreckage myself. The question is whether you're going to do it again."

"I didn't mean to do it."

"Nobody ever does."

"I was just like going to have one."

"And that is where it all goes to Hell. Just that first drink or that first hit or that first pill. Just a little bit becomes just a little more and just a little more to keep it going and then soon you can't stop."

"What do I do?"

"Don't take the first one drink or the first drug. There are some people who should never have a drink in their lives. You're one of them. I am one of them."

"It's just not fair. They all can drink and have fun. Why can't I?"

"They're normies and we're not."

"Normies?"

" Andrew and his cousin are normal people who can have one drink and just stop. You and I are not. Normies don't understand the craving - that need within you that just won't stop. We're people who should never have another drink."

"Siobhan is a normie."

Bridget laughed, remembering cruel years. "Only about drugs and alcohol."

"How did you get over the cravings?"

"I ... didn't. I have to deal with them every day. Every day I know I am just one drink away."

"I don't know if I can do it. They just hit. I'd been fighting it since that night at the apartment."

"Don't worry, Sweetie. Stress like that can make the cravings a whole lot worse. It's like everything in you says 'Just one little drink and you'll feel all better.' But it's a lie. The truth is every problem is worse with alcohol. But the cravings are getting easier to deal with. Some people say they actually go away. But right now for me it's just a one day at a time thing."

"That's you. But why me? Why am I stuck like this?"

"Juliet admitting you're an addict and you're not normal stinks but it beats becoming another Amy Winehouse."

"I just love her work with that Jazz influence and pop and that fearless experimental style.

"MTV and VH1 treated her like a hero for saying no, no, no to Rehab and for going back to blackout. They all gave her Grammies until she joined the 27 Club."

"What's the 27 Club?"

"You don't know the 27 club? That's how old they all were when they died of drugs or alcohol when that demon within got them. Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Pigpen McKernan and Jan Morrison and a whole lot more."

"Bridget I have enough problems trying to fit in at High School. I don't want to be the weirdo who can't even take a drink. I'll be the laughing stock of my whole college!"

Bridget laughed. She tried to stop but couldn't.

"Bridget, this is serious."

"Juliet, I am sorry but that's not it. Do you have any idea how much I would love to go to college? I don't mean party but ACTUALLY learn?"

Juliet was stunned. "Like ... really?"

"What, just because I'm old enough to be your mother?"

"No ... I didn't mean it like that. Besides, you're not old enough to be my mother."

"I was born September 29, 1979. You were born in 1996?"

"May first."

"You have a birthday coming up. I'd have been what, sixteen and a half? I've known younger mothers than sixteen."

Juliet paused as she watched the fog began slowly lift away, thinking quietly. "I guess you really could be my mother."

"Juliet, I spent more than ten years in an awful darkness. It was worse than any prison cell I've ever been in because it was inside of me and I hated myself for it. It started out with just a little something at night so I could go to sleep. Then in High School I could show off. I could drink all the boys under the table. I liked that. It was fun. Then it's more stuff and more kinds of stuff you use and you have less and less fun and you have uglier and uglier consequences because of that using. I consider myself lucky because God intervened and I did find my way out. Don't spend your life in the same Hell."

"They always talk about how bad the drug problem is in Miami. I thought it would be better once I got out."

"The geographical cure. I tried it all over the country.

Juliet just sat in the cold autumn sea breeze, shaking her head, feeling the sun on her face as it climbed in the sky. " They made me read the NA book and do the twelve NA steps and everything at Village South Rehab. I even tried to fake it and do that whole surrender yourself to God thing. See how much good it did."

Bridget laughed sadly. "Join the club. The first time I went to Alcoholic's Anonymous, I was seventeen. I had been sentenced by the court because I had a drunk and disorderly charge. I called it my AA classes like someone caught speeding goes to traffic school. I didn't want to change me so when my time with the court was up I went right back to drinking. I got pulled over for driving drunk on the Three Flags Highway just outside of Minden Airport in Nevada but I did a plea bargain for reckless driving instead of a DUI and so I had to go to AA again. Then they got me just outside the No Name saloon in Park City, Utah. Don't ever drive drunk in Utah. Mormons have no sense of humor. They confiscated my car and took my driver's license for four months and I had to listen to people quoting the Book of Mormon in the AA meetings there."

Juliet laughed. "It sounds dreadful."

"It was NASTY - really boring. Or so I thought at the time. But now I know I was the problem. I wasn't willing to make that first step. I refused to admit that I was powerless over my addiction and that my life had become unmanageable. I'm not sure I was even really ready when Detective Machado made me go to NA in Wyoming. But I learned there that people who had been using even longer than I was had found a way out."

Juliet watched the gulls soaring over the ocean as they looked for their breakfasts. She could manage, couldn't she? It was embarrassing but she hadn't actually hurt anyone. She knew now that she couldn't drink rum. But that didn't mean she couldn't drink whiskey, did it? She did just fine drinking whiskey at London's place.


	37. The Message

The Message

Andrew lay in bed staring at the ceiling. It was past 11:00. After Bridget's concerned appraisal of Juliet, Andrew descended into a very definite funk. He had really hoped that she would wise up after making such a jackass of herself at Eirian's. But it had never stopped Catherine from doing something as bad or worse the next time.

He loved Juliet. He knew inside he deeply and truly did. He would give anything so she could have a good, happy, successful life. But there was also a wild anger within him at Juliet. Sometimes he saw too much of Catherine's petty, self centeredness in her. There were days when she sounded and sometimes even looked like Catherine and all too often she acted like it. She had no thought of the long term consequences of her actions. Now of all times she should have known better. Not with Siobhan spinning the world out of control. He had to pay Eirian an extra five thousand dollars to get her to try again with Juliet. Save the whales, Eirian used to tell him every time she'd ask for a donation. It seemed that he was now bankrolling their entire recovery effort.

He stared and stared at the ceiling, his mind unable to get off finding a way to make Juliet see sense and act responsibly. His mind went over and over different programs and therapies to make her see reason. He seriously considered pouring himself a stiff drink because of Juliet's drinking but something seemed just a little too hypocritical about the idea. He knew he had to force himself to sleep so he could be strong looking tomorrow. He was going back to the pension fund board of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. He'd find out how badly they had messed up their finances and hopefully he'd be their savior. He really needed that.

The alarm clock woke him. He quickly got out of bed to chase the cobwebs out of his head, trying to remember what he was dreaming about before the alarm went off. As he brushed his teeth he remembered part of it, something about the monsters coming and struggling to find bullets for the guns and Bridget was there and he was saying how she had such nice, firm Celtic breasts and she lifted up her dress and showed them to him as he admired their beauty and perfect roundness. No doubt the dream would have worked into something good if the bloody alarm clock hadn't forced him back to reality.

He beat Claudine into the office. Not by much, but he did it. There was no phone message from Tim. He was a little concerned but Tim was a big boy and could take care of himself.

He checked his e-mail but there wasn't any news from Max-Genetics yet. Tomorrow, they had promised. Instead he focused on the matters at hand. He opened his leather briefcase and took out three apples, a bag of baby carrots and four slices of whole grain bread. It was healthy enough although somehow there was something ironic about the main use for his briefcase was now as an overpriced lunchbox. His real work he carried back and forth on an encrypted sixteen gigabyte USB drive that he kept in his wallet. As he munched an apple, he pushed his personal life entirely out of his mind and began proofing his PowerPoint.

Bridget's mind was far from Juliet's problems that morning. She'd known of the true extent of Juliet's drug and alcohol use far longer than Andrew did and she understood how Andrew had been an enabler. But there was nothing she could do right now about it. Juliet would have to come to her own moment of clarity. Instead she sang a half remembered old song as she polished her counter.

"Having your baby

Is another way of saying

that I love you.

Having your baby

is another way of saying

what I'm thinking thinking of you.

I can feel it. Isn't it showing?

Can't you see it in my eyes. My face is glowing.

Having your baby

is the only thing that really matters to me.

I feel like a lady.

I'm a woman in love and I love what it's doing to me.

The need inside me.

I feel it growin'

I'm having your baby

I'm a woman in love and I love what it's doing to me.

I feel like a lady.

I'm a woman in love and I love what's going through me.

Didn't have to keep it.

Didn't have to go through it.

I could have swept it from my life but I wouldn't do it.

Cause I'm having your baby.

I'm a woman in love and I love what it's doing to me.

I feel like a lady.

I'm a woman in love and I love what's going through me.

Havin' your baby.

I'm a woman in love and I don't mean maybe."

She tried to remember the rest of it but couldn't. She couldn't even remember who wrote it. Oh well, it didn't matter. She knew how it felt.

As she sang, Bernie and his friend Otis unlocked the back door and came on in. She had seen them around a couple of times so she waved. Bernie was shorter than his father but fortunately taller than his uncle Moe. Otis was black and very, very big, built like a football player. She'd heard from Sophie that they were both going part time to law school at NYU and driving cabs part time to pay for their expenses and tuition. "Good morning, good morning," she told them. "What may I get you?"

Bernie shook his head. "We didn't mean to interrupt your lovely singing. We'll just grab it ourselves, Bridget."

"Oh, nonsense. Not after I've made everything all ready for the day. You have to let me do it. Have a seat." She put on her plastic gloves. "So, what would you like?"

"A hard salami on rye. But like Carnegie Deli."

Her eyes went wide? "Ooh, that sounds good." She turned on the slicer and got to work slicing a pile thick enough for one of those gigantic Carnegie Deli sandwiches. "With sliced dill pickles and a smear of potato salad and a can of Dr. Brown Celery soda, right?"

He smiled. "You remembered."

"I do try. Now Otis, what is your pleasure."

"Just a can of tuna."

"In a deli like this all a strong man like you can think of is a can of cat food?"

Otis patted his stomach. "Too much deli food. I got to eat better."

"Alright. How about a big glass of V8 and some fruit salad with it? You need your veggies too."

"Yes, mother. Can you do it to go? Got to get those commuter tips. And can you sing that song? I really liked how you did it."

"Certainly!"

As she sang and prepared their breakfasts, Bridget didn't notice the woman standing outside peeking through the curtain of kosher salamis. The face would have looked all too familiar, even under the grey haired wig, sun glasses and shapeless clothes. She pretended to be reading the menu as she looked at Bridget. "How utterly and revoltingly fitting," Siobhan thought. "She's fell from Park Avenue to sandwich lady and surely she went back on the bottle again." Siobhan moved on without attracting attention to herself, looking around carefully to make sure nobody was watching her. One can't be too careful, she thought.

She knew she was doing the world a favor, just as she had done it a favor by removing John DeLario. She felt proud about removing him from the world and how she so neatly made it look like he had decided to commit suicide after murdering Gemma. Henry was just a matter of indifference, an obstacle she had to overcome to get to the end she was meant to get to. She smiled. Still, she had to admit it was fun. It surely beat attempting to hold down a stupid job like making sandwiches. That had always been such a fiasco, almost as much as a nightmare as trying to fake a relationship with Andrew and Dylan. Had she reached that point of boredom with Henry? Perhaps she had. Perhaps that's why neatly killing him off had been so wonderful. No divorce, no break-up scenes, no loose ends, no worries about him trying to come back into her life when she didn't want it. Just wonderful finality.

As she walked, lit a cigarette. She had only one left in the pack. One more to take down, one way to do it, she thought, understanding the message the cigarette pack was telling her.

The sidewalks were so crowded with smelly people, she thought. It made her shudder as each one walked by, pulling back so none would touch her. She would breathe easier after her mission was done, when she escaped away to Paris or perhaps to some little, quiet for a while like Moustiers-Sainte-Marie in Provence. Yes, there she could properly rest until she felt like herself again.

She had to focus, to plan carefully. She knew she had been distracted lately, probably because she had been sleeping so poorly. It was as if her one purpose in life now was to strike at her enemies. Seeing Bridget look so feeble and utterly vulnerable made her feel far better than she had in days. It positively lifted her out of the ever deepening funk she had been in. It was just post partum depression, she told herself. She was run down. She would feel better soon. Her greatest enemy had been delivered into her hand.

She knew she had to strike with utter surprise. She would stake out the location as she planned her greatest move.

She passed a Chinese market. There was a message for her here too. Everyone else who walked past just saw a window display arrayed with kitchenware and food but she saw the true meaning to the kitchen cutlery.


	38. Reports

Reports

They were on the FDR heading back to the office. Solomon was driving the limousine. "And so I had the entire bunch of them in the passenger seats, the grandfather, the father and three sons and the whole trip they were having a party, feasting on Panelle and Arancini ai Gamberetti and in the back they were passing around a bottle of red wine as we were all singing Canzone Napoletana like 'O Sole Mio and Santa Lucia. Of course I didn't have any of the wine but mmm, the Arancini ai Gamberetti was heavenly."

"So how did you talk them into it," Andrew asked. He was in a very good mood. The meeting had gone well with the pension fund board of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. They had been hit so badly by losses from JP Morgan Chase's aggressive trading strategies in derivative transactions trading that they were desperate, even desperate enough to gamble on the recommendation of their best performing fund planner. Martin Charles now had their entire account. All he needed to do was to be right about world politics.

"It was easy. When I said John DeLario had been murdered, they said Detective Towers had ruled the death a suicide so his life insurance company wouldn't pay them on a $100,000 policy with a double indemnity clause. John had been a dirty cop so the NYPD wasn't exactly cooperative with the family, which is sad since they're all perfectly respectable. Ever seen the commercials for Al's plumbing?"

"I haven't had the pleasure."

Solomon began bellowing in his off key singing, more or less to the tune of the children's ditty "If you're happy clap your hands." Instead of the familiar lyrics it went like this.

"Is your family fighting

because of problems with your piping?

Give a call to Al.

He is your plumbing pal

Happiness and low prices he will bring.

"Is your family ready to blow

because your toilet will overflow

Give a call to Al.

He is your plumbing pal

He will bring joy to your chateau."

"Is your family ..."

Andrew shuddered at the thought and held up his hand. "I'm not much into contemporary poetry."

"Hey, they've been in business around Queens forever and if you think there's big bucks in what you do you should see how much money they make. So I traded them the proof that Siobhan killed John for them all going down to Max-Genetics. Plus this allows them to get John buried in an honorable funeral. Apparently he had been a very bad boy and with the suicide their church said his being given a church funeral there would be a 'scandal to the faithful.'"

"So his murdering Gemma wasn't a scandal, just the suicide?"

Solomon shrugged. "Don't ask me. The Roman Catholic Church and I parted company a long time ago."

Andrew nodded, not sure if he wanted more details. "When did the lab say the results would be done?"

"This was yesterday afternoon and they said two to three business days so maybe tomorrow?"

"That's when they said they'd have the paternity test for Bridget back too. With all I'm paying them they should be giving me express service."

"I'll bet you a thousand dollars Bridget's baby is yours."

"You don't seem like the gambling type."

"I'm not. It's a sure thing and I need the money."

Andrew sat and asked himself how much would he bet against it being his? Certainly not a thousand dollars. No, not a hundred. Ten? No, he wasn't even sure enough he'd bet ten dollars against. Besides, he would look extremely stupid if he were proven wrong. "No," he said, smiling. "No bet."

"Smart call. Still, if DeLario was the father of Siobhan's twins you'll have very legal proof."

"And they get two hundred thousand dollars."

"Actually they said if they do collect the insurance money they'll consider it money from God and will donate it to charity, each one choosing where to give a forty thousand dollars."

"That would be impressive."

Solomon pulled up in front of the office. "Want me to take you home?"

"I'll take a cab. I have no idea how late I'll be."

He took the elevator up, a spring in his step. As he walked in, Claudine's eyes met his, and by the smile on his face she smiled back. Then she nodded towards Tim's office. The door was open and Andrew thought he heard the sound of a video game coming from it.

He walked on over and knocked. Dash and Becks were sitting on the floor. One was playing games on a mobile phone and the other was coloring. Which was doing which Andrew had no idea. He never was that good at remembering tiny subtleties in people's appearance.

"Come in," Tim said, sitting behind the desk and reading a report. "How did it go?"

"We got it."

"How much?"

"Everything in their pension plan. We now have it all. The account value of Martin Charles has just more than tripled."

Andrew had been expecting Tim to be pleased and yet he seemed to be disappointed. "Congratulations," he said dully. "That is good news. You do know if you're wrong you personally will take the fall."

"Oh yes, Tim. I have not forgotten that. But I really think I am right. Just the fear over the Greek elections and uncertainties over the Spanish economy have to burst the crude oil bubble."

"Unless there is another crisis in the Mideast."

"Tim, you've been watching Fox News too much. Nobody with large oil reserves is showing signs of instability right now. Eight weeks from now we will look very good."

"Perhaps." Tim returned to his reading, in a not so subtle way telling Andrew to get out.

Andrew retreated to his office, pondering what he'd seen in Tim's office. The old man had probably been thinking of sacking him soon but now he was being forced to reconsider. How long did he have? He wasn't sure, but with the "paid for performance" contract that Tim had insisted on he would now be owed quite a nice piece of change, money due instantly upon termination.

He hung his suit jacket and sat down, finishing the last apple and slice of bread as he logged into his e-mail. He went first to the e-mail from the Eye Q detective agency and printed the attached report.

The first odd thing he noticed was that Siobhan and Bridget didn't have the same birthday. He knew Siobhan's was the 30th of September. He knew to get her something indulgent or there would be Hell to pay. Bridget's was the 29th of September. It surprised him a little but not too much. He had heard of twins born a few minutes apart and yet in different years before.

Both had juvenile offender records. Bridget's record was no real surprises. She had been arrested for shoplifting in November of 1993 and drunk and disorderly in June of 1996 and had pled guilty to both. He did the math from her being born in 1979. She had been a fourteen year old shoplifter and a seventeen year old drunk but by her own admission she had been a mess.

It was Siobhan's record that shocked him. Section 28.02, arson, arrested July of 1991. New York penal law 130.20, statute 353-a. Pled innocent but convicted. An eleven year old arsonist? Aggravated cruelty to animals in February of 1992. Pled innocent but was convicted. She was what, twelve? He checked a law book. That was a felony. There was an arrest for New York penal law 130.20, statute 353-a. Throwing substance injurious to animals in public place in 1993 but she was found innocent on that charge.

That had to be wrong. It made no sense.

As an adult, Bridget had a number of encounters with the law. One was an arrest for soliciting for prostitution in Nevada but she pled innocent and was not convicted but did plead guilty to a drunk and disorderly charge as well as a separate reckless driving charge. She was cited for a petty offense of possession of under an ounce of marijuana in Colorado. He smiled for a second. Did the Rocky Mountain High state make it a petty offense for having no marijuana whatsoever? She also pled guilty to drunk diving in Utah.

Siobhan's adult record was relatively clean except for a conviction for domestic violence in Oklahoma against Dylan Morrison. She had an arrest for theft in Nevada, but it was dropped before going to trial. And then she returned to New York and dropped into his life and had a clean record ever since. Lucky him.

The criminal report contained no details on the crimes they committed as juveniles but there were two interviews with neighbors. He couldn't take reading it, not at the office. Instead he hid the printout in his briefcase and went to the e-mail from the Columbia graduate student he had programming his futures forecasting routine.

Tim, however, continued with his reading and it was not about anything so mundane as predicting what the price of soy beans would be in 60 days. He finally managed to get the police do a proper scientific investigation of Gemma's home. A quick ultraviolet light analysis had found blood patterns on the living room wall. Those had been scrubbed down but they found spatters on the carpet and behind the baseboard that hadn't been. They were a match for Gemma. There were also blood traces in the back of their station wagon that were a match for Gemma's murderer, John DeLario. Henry obviously had been involved in her murder. That whole story of Henry "accidentally" screwing up Bridget and Andrew paying off the ransom must have been a lie.

He remembered a quote he had first seen on an episode of Star Trek while he was in Viet Nam. It was spoken by an Andorian to Mr. Spock when someone had tried to kill Kirk. "Perhaps you should forget logic and devote yourself to motivations of passion or gain. Those are reasons for murder." Henry had both motives. He collected handsomely after Gemma's death in life insurance and in Gemma's house and other property that he gained sole control of.

Tim kept asking himself why if Henry had passion for Siobhan and wanted to gain money he didn't just divorce Gemma? He would have gladly given Henry a million dollars in cash to do it. It would have been cheap to get that selfish turd out of her life.

The physical evidence showing that Henry had to be involved did extinguish that tiny flicker of guilt Tim felt about Henry's death but it left more unanswered questions. What else was Henry involved in? Was he behind defrauding Martin Charles? How long had they been planning Gemma's murder? And then there was that greatest question of all, why?

Henry was dead. His funeral would be tomorrow. For the sake of the family reputation he even agreed to have him buried near Gemma although it galled him. Siobhan was still alive and at liberty. He had to end that.

He thought of how much money was going in various ways to different people in NYPD to basically pay them to do their jobs. He estimated it at about a hundred thousand a week. It would be less expensive and far more satisfying to track down and kill Siobhan himself. One shot, one kill. He may have left Viet Nam over 40 years ago but he knew he was still quite capable of taking her down. He even knew which gun he would use. He could see feel that .30 06 deer rifle in his arms. He could see her through the crosshairs of the telescopic sight and as he carefully squeezed one off he could feel the kick and hear the report of the short. That cheating, lying, murdering bitch would collapse dead instantly with a round through the center of her heartless chest as surely as last January's white tail on his Suffolk County reserve.

He looked at Dash and Becks. He couldn't indulge his ravenous hunger to kill her himself. As much as he wanted to he couldn't risk the family's future. He would have to try to do it legally.


	39. Pay Day

Pay Day

Thursday evening had been a cause for Bridget to celebrate. She her week's pay. Well she had some of it. Moe gave her $80 in cash and a check for $137.00. She would open up a bank account on Saturday and deposit the check. In the mean time, she had a little bit of shopping she wanted to do. On the way to her evening NA meeting she stopped at the market and picked up a bottle of calcium tablets and a pound of provolone cheese. All week she had been craving cheese and today was payday. Now she had the money to indulge herself. She was so happy as she sat and listened to the speaker. It felt so good to have a dollar to put in the basket she thought as she sat like a big mouse nibbling her cheese until it was gone to the last crumb. After the meeting she bought herself a hard cover copy of the 6th Edition of Narcotics Analysis. Her eyes had been so dry and blurry lately that it would be so much easier to read than squinting through the tiny screen on her Droid.

Everyone always turned off their phones in the meetings so they wouldn't disturb others but when she turned it on after she had a message from Juliet. She was thoroughly miserable. Andrew's cousin was making her go spend the day working at a charity for horseback riding therapy for disabled children. She was quite afraid she'd end up smelling like the exhaust from horse's tail pipes. It was obvious to Bridget that Juliet was trying to enlist her so she could wiggle out of the consequences of her poor decisions. But Bridget knew better than to be an enabler. She texted back a quote from Simon Bolivar that she learned from Malcolm. "Judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement."

The evening was considerably less kind to Andrew. After eating dinner he read the transcripts of what Mrs. Andrew was rather too shocked to call at the moment. He had read the transcripts of what Mrs. Cohen and Mrs. Zaplyuysvіchka said about the two terrible Kelly girls. He could understand Bridget getting completely smashed and actually defecating on a tile mosaic of the school logo on her High School graduation night. That was stupid but human. But why did Siobhan sneak into her church, gather up all the hymn books in the chapel and set them on fire? Why did she kill an old woman's dog with a hammer?

How had she have so utterly fooled him?

He had facts but no logical reason or even any motivations. Why did they do those things? What had gone wrong? What did it all mean?

He read the transcripts over again, trying this time to glean information between the lines. He combed through them yet again, writing out a timeline for the events to derive their relationships. He tried to fill in the rest of the family information. He couldn't trust what Siobhan had said at all. He wasn't even sure he could trust what Bridget had said. Still nothing in the transcripts contradicted what Bridget had told him during those months when she was pretending to be Siobhan.

He had to come up with a better name for her during that time. Shidget? No that definitely had a very politically incorrect meaning. Shivette? No that was a word for pimples.

He saw the clock read almost one in the morning and realized he needed to be in good condition for work tomorrow. Unfortunately all he did was toss and turn in bed again, seemingly all night. Finally the alarm clock woke him. He rushed to get ready and out the door and managed to make the same elevator with Claudine again. They made non-descript chatter about their weekend plans and when Gingrich and Santorum would withdraw from the Presidential election.

As soon as he got to his desk, Andrew checked his voice mail. Today, he had an early morning message. Tim would be busy with Henry's funeral. Andrew would be in charge of the office and should text James if there was anything that required his attention or authorization.

He forced himself to focus on the matters at hand. He checked his e-mail but there wasn't any news from Max-Genetics yet, just a note from Mei-Mei that she had installed the next version of the analysis software on his server last night and that he should make sure it met his needs. He would have to be sure to check it out thoroughly this weekend.

The most important business of the day was completing the movement of funds from JP Morgan Chase to Martin Charles. Of course JP Morgan was not particularly cooperative. Finally weariness and frustration overcame him and he took a nap during lunch time. After his lunch time nap he had the e-mail from Max-Genetics that he had both been wanting and dreading arrived but all it told was their toll free number to call and told him to reference his customer number.

Unfortunately, Andrew's call was answered by a computer. Andrew hated it. They never could understand him when he spoke proper English. He hated the robotic voices he couldn't understand. He hated having to answer every question with a number and he hated how insanely slow they were. "Enter your customer number using your telephone keypad and then press pound or number sign." With his teeth gnashing, Andrew did. "Now enter your personal PIN number and then press pound or number sign." It took Andrew three tries to remember what his PIN number was.

The voice on the phone suddenly switched. Instead of a robot it was a recording of a cheery woman with bouncy music in the background. "While we look up your account information, let us tell you of other valuable Max-Genetics products. With one simple blood test, you can learn the sex of your baby as early as five weeks after conception. That's right, five weeks. Are you or is someone you know a twin? Have you ever wondered whether you are really an identical twin or just a fraternal twin? The answer may surprise you. Max-Genetics can tell you for sure with just a simple cheek swab. It's easier than brushing your teeth and only takes two days to get the answer. Are you curious where your ancestors really came from? We can tell you what your real family line is. Are there any disorders such as heart disease, stroke, cancer or diabetis that your relatives have? Let the miracle of Max-Genetics's patented DNA sequencing technology allow you to know what health conditions your doctor needs to pay especially close attention to so you can enjoy your life to the fullest." There was a click on the line and the computerized robot was back. "Now enter the FAX number you would like your confidential report sent to and then press pound or number sign." Of course he didn't know his FAX number. He never sent himself a FAX. So he had to look it up on his business card. "Goodbye and thank you for allowing Max-Genetics to serve your genetic analysis needs." the computer said before hanging up.

Andrew checked the FAX machine several times over the next hour, but nothing was on the machine. He returned to the business of business.

As he struggled with locating the right people to complete the transfer of the funds for the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, Claudine came in with a small pile of paper and silently placed it on his desk. He picked it up and smiled "Thanks" as she quietly walked out the door. He saw the time stamp on the FAX. It was dated almost half an hour ago, a good ten minutes before his last check of the FAX machine. That settled in his mind the little question of whether Claudine's loyalty was first to him or to Tim. Obviously she had copied it for him. Tim probably knew the answers already. Probably the whole office already did.

It wasn't that he was going to try to keep any of it a secret. Everything in the bizarre saga was far too well known by the office for that. He just felt he should be the one telling them rather than being the last in the office to learn.

He read the FAX.

It had long columns of information with headers like Direct Index, Exclusion Status, STR Locus and Allele Range. He didn't understand it all so he took a deep breath and began reading the report analysis at the bottom.

Alleged relationship is not excluded. Combined Parentage Index Probability of Parentage. The alleged father, Andrew Martin, cannot be excluded as the biological father of the unborn child named Kid Doe of Bridget Kelly. Based on testing results obtained from analyses of 15 different DNA probes, the probability of paternity is 99.9999999989112%. This probability of paternity is calculated by comparing to an untested, unrelated man of the North American Caucasian population (assumes prior probability equals .50). This DNA Parentage Test excluded greater than 99.999999% of the male population from the possibility of being the biological father of the tested child.

Report Date 4/27/2012

Subscribed and sworn before me on 4/27/2012.

I, Sven H. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., verify that the interpretation of results is correct as reported, and the above testing was conducted in accordance with the recommended guidelines for DNA testing set forth by AABB. Below that was Dr. Berlin's signature and the signature of the legal notary.

"Door open or closed," Claudine said.

He looked up and noticed that she was still there. "Closed, please," he managed to say with due composure.

He carefully reviewed the Statistical Results block. There was no two ways of interpreting the data. The chance of someone else being the father was over 11 billion to one. That was more than the number of people on the planet.

It really was his father's nose in the sonogram.

He read the exclusion status column. Every row read OK except for one that read N/A. Like a good number cruncher, he read that row. It was for STR Locus of Amelogenin. What was Amelogenin? What was STR Locus? He saw that under his and Kid Doe's name was XY and under Bridget's name was XX. "It's a boy," he said, almost laughing. "I'm going to have a son."

He looked at the other FAX's. None was as perfect a match for Siobhan's babies as his was for Bridget's, but all were close. Grandfather Alfonso was the furthest as would be expected, then his father Giuseppe and with Mathew and Luke being extremely close and Mark being so close that he was listed as the probable father.

She had cheated on him. She had even cheated on Henry.

He tried to care about Martin Charles and JP Morgan Chase right now. He wanted to just calmly return to business he kept wondering who else she had slept with. He recoiled like she was full of a loathsome disease. It wasn't that he was perfect in the lifetime fidelity department. He had to take responsibility for having had that affair with Siobhan that ended his marriage with Catherine. But he never had once cheated on Siobhan. He felt like getting a wide spectrum test for all the known sexually transmitted diseases.

His eyes kept looking at all those tests proving she had slept with DeLario and then his eye flickered onto something odd. STR Locus of D18S51. Siobhan's entry said 15 and 18. Bridget's entry said 15 and 20. He looked back and forth and that was what it said. He carefully checked them all. One more was different. Siobhan's Penta D was 12 and 17 and Bridget's was 11 and 12.

He was almost reconciling himself to the idea of his having a son and then confusion and doubt crept into his mind. Did the lab screw up the test? If the lab screwed up the test then maybe he was the father of Siobhan's babies and not Bridget's. That would be awful.

He had a name. Sven H. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D. His notarized signature was on both sets of test results. It took five phone calls but finally he reached Dr. Berlin. He expected the voice to be that of an old man with a thick German accent but it sounded far younger and totally Californian. "I was very tempted to call you, Mr. Martin," he said. "I supervised those test runs personally and we ran them over again when we noticed how close your two mothers are. They're sisters, right?"

"Identical twins."

"No," Sven said. "Definitely not identical."

"What do you mean?"

"An identical twin means something very specific. They are nature's clones. Only about one in four sets of twins among Caucasian populations are actually identical. But you would be amazed at how often non-identical twins look just the same."

"But they really do look identical."

"When you put them side by side and compare every angle of their eyebrows and their exact measurements do they really look absolutely and completely identical."

Andrew thought for a minute. He never had actually seen the two of them together. In fact, there was a month between the time he last saw Siobhan and the first time he saw Bridget. He remembered saying how she had lost weight and it didn't look good on her. "I don't know," he finally said.

"I had a set of middle aged sisters last year at Twinsburg you'd have sworn were identical, but the genes don't lie."

"Twinsburg?"

"It's the first weekend in August in Twinsburg, Ohio. If they've never been they just have to go. They'll have a blast and us researchers love it. Anyway, last year I saw one set of twins who had lived their whole lives thinking they were identical but really weren't and two women well one was maybe maybe just barely a B cup and the other one was like really definitely a D and well they were identicals. You had to see them to believe them."

Somehow Andrew doubted that both Siobhan and Bridget would be happily attending a festival for twins together this August. "How does that happen?"

"Lots of ways. Spontaneous mutation on rare occasion. The womb is never completely an equal environment. One twin always ends up with more than their share. Sometimes it's an accident in the environment after birth that one twin was subjected to and not the other. Sometimes it's a new field of research called epigenetics that determines whether a gene will be expressed or not."

"So what do those differences between them mean?"

"In this case, not a whole heck of a lot. They're both markers for mammary development in females. They will mean a minor difference in their estrogen levels and the skin on their breasts and the milk ducts under their nipples. But don't worry. With those alleles they're both in the set for low cancer risk, just nice, safe, healthy breasts."

In man's eternal question of thigh, breast or derriere, there seemed little question of Dr. Berlin's answer.


	40. The Good Twin

The Good Twin

It had been quite simple, Siobhan thought. Yesterday she had walked in her disguise down the alley behind the deli where Bridget worked and she had seen workers unloading a truck and taking the supplies through the back door. As she carefully walked past, she caught a view of a set of stairs they descended with the boxes of napkins and plastic forks. There had to be a store room under the restaurant.

As she watched the workers she noted that they wore a chocolate brown shirt and a brown baseball cap. Both had Steinberg's Deli's logo on it but as she watched Bridget through the window Thursday morning she saw that Bridget wore two hair nets and a white cook's outfit.

She looked up Steinberg's Deli on the web and saw that it was a real family Kosher deli, the kind nobody actually has any more. They closed early on Friday and wouldn't re-open until Sunday. Everyone would be gone Friday night except Bridget. All Siobhan had to do was get in.

Friday morning, she bought a shirt and a hat that were more or less a match in a souvenir shop and picked up the right hair nets and butcher's apron to match. With a little bit of careful dressing, they would pretty well obscure where the logo should be.

She took the bus over and then put the apron, hat and hairnets on in the alley. Then when the coast was clear she slipped through the back door and headed down the stairs. Nobody even looked at her.

Once she was down in the basement, she didn't dare turn on a light or someone might spot it. Instead she found her way by the dim illumination of the emergency exit sign and the flickers of the one small fluorescent overhead light.

The basement was stuffed to the rafters. Half of it was for storage of restaurant supplies but there was a washer, drier, coal bin, coal fired boiler, the hot water heater and even piles of old restaurant equipment and furniture.

She silently crept back into the darkest recesses of the basement. In the ghostly light, she could see cellar spiders. They were supposed to have horribly painful bites. She stayed motionless, hoping not to attract one. Were there black widow spiders in the basement, she wondered, unable to do anything in the dimness.

She planned exactly what she was going to do to her. Those eyes that had looked out pretending to be hers had to go. She would destroy them, with a knife like the one in the message in the window of the Chinese market. Then she would cut her heart out, just as Bridget had stabbed her in the heart years ago. As she lived each moment, she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, the overhead light was out. She pulled out her phone. It was 9:41 PM.

She checked the dryer. It even had a clean shirt in her size. She changed into it.

She was tense but she felt alive, more alive than she had in months. She carefully made it up the narrow, steep stairs, trying to step just on her toes so her heels would not click against the dry boards. She crept into the kitchen and chose her weapon, a double edged puntilla knife. Of course she had her backup in her pocket but that would not be her weapon of choice. By stabbing Bridget to death she could make it look like a random killing but she knew if she shot her the bullets would link Bridget right to Henry.

It had been a traumatic afternoon for Andrew. Everything he thought he knew just kept getting unraveled again and again. At least he was pretty satisfied that he was the father. He made himself something to eat and he did something he rarely did, which was watch his Tivo of the American news. It was the first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden's death. That would make flights ever so much more painful. Then they ran the trial of former American politician John Edwards on Federal charges of misusing campaign funds to hide his pregnant mistress. Pregnant mistresses. Pregnant mistresses. Didn't the TV have anything better than pregnant mistresses? He turned it off in disgust and fixed himself dinner.

He had to do the testing on the latest program upgrade from Mei-Mei. He looked at his test documentation and thought of the additional variables like rainfall and temperature he would need along with the Model Input Statistics to correlate against. He didn't have that information yet. He would have to stick to non-agricultural commodities like energy or metals and just use the agricultural products as one of the input parameters to represent overall economic health for the moment.

He paced up and down his office. Finally even he had to admit to himself that he was just working very hard to avoid calling. Sooner or later he'd have to get on the phone. It would be best for everyone to get it over with. He hit the auto-dial on his speaker phone. That way he could at least fiddle with the computer to keep his composure during the call. "Hello, Bridget," he said when the phone finally answered.

"Hi," she said. "How are you?"

"OK. I hope I didn't call too late?"

"No, not at all. I was just lying in bed reading and relaxing."

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, actually. I feel good. I really hope I'm going to have one of those magic second trimesters."

"Do you want to know the sex?"

"Oh, it's a boy. I know that?"

"How did you find out?"

"I'm his mother. Of course I know." She paused. "You got the test results back?"

"Yes. It's mine."

"Told you."

He began to pace again. "I just had to be sure. I hope you understand."

"Not completely but now you believe it's yours and you feel better from it. So that makes it all good."

"I'll talk to my lawyer on Monday. Our son will not want. I promise."

"Maybe not for money but what about for you?"

He sighed. She had brought up a very painful spot. "I made a lot of mistakes with Juliet. I don't want to make them a second time. For years I was just her financial father. I won't do that again."

"I'm glad to hear that. He needs you. And I'm not Catherine. I really want you to be our baby's father."

He thought about his own rocky relationship with his father. He hoped to be more of a force for good than his father was and yet he knew the time demands of his chosen profession.

There were still so many unanswered questions in his mind. Part of him wanted to sit her down and interrogate her on Siobhan, but she'd probably just hang up. How would he get his questions answered? Another round by the private investigator? Who would they even ask?

As Bridget patiently waited for Andrew to say something and wondered what he was thinking, she heard something outside her room, a regular clicking. She knew that pattern well. She heard exactly that rhythm every time she walked in heels. She took the phone away from her ear and waited, and saw the doorknob move, just a little and her heart sank. It was the moment she had been fearing. "Call 911," she whispered. "NOW!"

"What," Andrew said. "What is wrong?"

"Just do it, now." She left the phone on the bed and went to her dresser. She had been keeping that big pocket knife in her pants. It actually had come in handy as a box cutter. She had locked the door but she hadn't secured that idiotic door bar. Instead of trying to secure the door she grabbed the pepper spray and a heavy, old framer's hammer that she'd borrowed from a box of tools in the basement. She waited, and then the doorknob moved again.

Killing had not come easily or naturally to Bridget. She had despised Macawi even before he killed Shaylene. She would have said she wanted to see him dead of course, but to actually do it was something else entirely. Even killing him left her in shock and filled with shame and disgust and more than a little doubt about the status of her eternal soul. She knew inside she couldn't kill her sister to save her own life. As much as they had fought, as much as Siobhan had done to her she knew all she'd done to Siobhan and she couldn't bring herself to trade her life for Siobhan's.

On the other side of the door, Siobhan was through waiting. She began kicking the flimsy seeming door, knowing one or two hits would make it pop.

As the bedroom door shuddered under Siobhan's blows, Bridget realized she would not be fighting Siobhan just for her own life. She would be fighting for her baby's life and Andrew's life and Juliet's life. If she died, her baby died and if she didn't stop Siobhan now then nobody knew who would die before Siobhan was stopped.

After a few hits, the moment both Siobhan and Bridget had been waiting for happened. The door opened. Siobhan burst in, murderous knife in her stronger left hand and as the hand went past the door frame and before the rest of her did Bridget slammed the door shut with all her weight and all her might, trapping Siobhan's good hand in the door as Bridget pounded it and pounded over and over with the hammer. With each hit she could hear bones crush in Siobhan's left hand. Finally the double edged cooking knife dropped from it and Bridget quickly emptied the fire extinguisher of pepper spray into Siobhan's face, choking them both.

The pain, the shock and the tear gas should have stopped anyone in their tracks but after a moment Siobhan recovered with that strength that only a lunatic can have. She burst forth like an animal, knocking Bridget back. Groping on the floor, she found her knife again with her right hand.

It was the strength of the damned against the relentless fighting of a mother protecting her children as Bridget slammed Siobhan in the head, first with the empty pepper spray canister and now willing to use deadly force she tried to brain her with the hammer but missed, raking Siobhan's face with the claw of the hammer instead.

Siobhan had Bridget pinned and even though she could barely see from the pepper spray and could only use her weaker right hand was stabbing at her face. Bridget's eyes filled with blood, almost blinding her. She knew she would be killed if she didn't get Siobhan off her soon. She still had the knife in her right pocket. She took it out, opened it jammed it where she thought it would do the most good, to rip the C section incisions. As she slashed across with the blade, ripping flesh, Siobhan winced for a second and in that second Bridget drove the blade into her belly, twisted it and pulled it out.

Bernie was hungry after a long shift of driving his cab and as his last fare was just a few blocks away on Houston Street he figured he'd stop off for a bite before heading back to his apartment by NYU. He smelled the pepper spray as soon as he entered the deli and then he heard the crashing and pounding. He went upstairs and as he climbed the stairs and turned on the overhead lights in the pepper gas drenched hallway Siobhan rolled out of the room recover but Bridget pressed the attack, knife in one hand but growling and jumping after Siobhan and swinging that hammer with the other. Bridget could feel the sinking feeling and could hear a crunch that meant she had connected with flesh and bone but had little idea whether it was Siobhan's foot or head by now. She swung again. There was light now and that helped. She could see movement in the light.

Bernie looked and saw in horror that someone was beating Bridget the singing sandwich girl with a hammer and then he saw that it was Bridget doing the attacking. They were both in the same shirts from the Deli. They both had the same blonde hair and their faces now looked equally broken, they were both bleeding and they both had long knives. "Stop," Bernie shouted. "Stop it."

"Bernie," said the one with the hammer. "Call the police."

"Yes, Bernie, call the police," said the second Bridget as she savagely swung and slashed at the first.

He looked at the two of them and decided to listen rather than take matters into his own hands. He was of no mind to risk his life because of some pregnant druggie Shiksa even if she was rather cute.

Siobhan slashed at her with the knife but with the big fluorescent hall lights on Bridget could see well enough to parry with her hammer and land a blow on Siobhan's arm. With Siobhan's arm thrown back Bridget pounded away, striking away with both ends of the hammer.

By now Siobhan knew Bridget wasn't going down easy. She knew she was bleeding badly and her left hand was shattered. She tried to get enough room to draw her gun with her right arm but each time she lowered the knife Bridget pounded her with that hammer. With the long handle that hammer had a foot more reach than she did with her knife and Bridget parried and landed lunging blows like the cane fighting book she flipped through. With no other option, Siobhan charged again with her knife, focusing only on that arm wielding that deadly hammer.

As Siobhan charged, Bridget's eyes had so much blood in them that she could barely make out her form. She had to guess what was happening. Bridget swung the hammer down with her left hand and brought the knife Solomon had bought for her up, hoping to disable Siobhan's arm. Her arm was on fire from Siobhan's knife but she could feel the hammer connect. She couldn't tell if Siobhan still had her blade in hand but she took no chances and hammered away. Even through the pain, Bridget could feel that her own knife was no longer in her hand. All she had to defend herself with was that hammer and she used it, raining hard where Siobhan's head must be, hoping to connect.

Outside, Bernie waited patiently for New York's finest. Detective Stavros and a short and none too bright uniformed officer named Gunther Toody piled out of a squad car. Toody wanted a new LED screen wall mount flat panel TV set and Stavros's wife Irene wanted plane tickets for the family reunion in Greece so they both were working their vacation days for Arbogast's offer of triple time for an eight hour shift. Irene had fully prepared him with her sea bass with feta and a thermos of sweetened Turkish coffee but Toody's wife Lucille was not nearly so domestically minded. So Toody stopped at the 24 hour Dunkin Donuts on East Houston so he could get a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies and an extra big Dunkaccino before they were would start their shift by the deli. When the call finally came it literally caught Stavros with his pants down in the head but he quickly pulled himself together and they drove over. "There are two of them upstairs," Bernie said, shaking his head in confusion.

As the red, white and blue lights of the squad car lit the block, Toody got the shotgun from the car. "You cover the rear," Stavros said to Toody, drawing his pistol and using the door for cover. "Get behind the car," he said to Bernie. "For your own protection."

Bernie didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled behind the car and pulled out his iPhone so he could record it all for youtube. He didn't have long to wait as a bloody, battered figure in a Steinberg's Deli T-shirt staggered out. Her arms and face and body were gashed horribly and there was a knife sticking in her arm. She looked for all the world like something out of a zombie movie as she staggered out. "Help," she said. "Get me an ambulance."

Stavros shined the patrol car's spotlight on her and leveled his pistol at the center of her chest. "NYPD. Freeze."

"It's me, Bridget. Put the gun away."

He grabbed the mike of the car police radio, still keeping her in his sights. "Car 54 requesting ambulance to Steinberg's Deli, Avenue B and 4th Ave." Then he turned back. "NYPD. Raise your hands over your head."

"I don't think I can. I'm bleeding bad."

"Then don't move."

"Damn it, I'm Bridget. Siobhan is in there with a gun. Go in and shoot her before she comes out and shoots me."

"If you're Bridget show me your right shoulder."

"What?"

"Slowly, one finger only. Right shoulder. Show me under the shirt."

She slowly moved her left hand towards the right sleeve of her T-shirt. She knew she'd spend life in prison if she were arrested and she'd seen the tattoo on Bridget's shoulder as they fought. She was Siobhan. She spoke French and had lived in Paris. She was the strong and good twin, not that loathsome alcoholic addict. She had no fear of anyone or anything. She would control her own life and destiny and anything was preferable than spending the rest of her life in some maximum security prison with loathsome criminals. She slipped her right hand around and pulled the pistol out of her pocket, pressed it to her skull and pulled the trigger to make the ultimate and final escape.

Bernie rocked as if struck when he saw her gun fire against her head through his iPhone's screen. But he kept his phone recording and followed her as she dropped.

Stavros keyed the radio. "Toody, come on back. We have one twin down." He carefully went to check her, gun still pointed to kill her instantly if she were alive as he watched her life's blood spilling into the gutter. But there was no pulse and by the size of the entrance and exit wound she had very little left in the way of brains. "Dispatch, Car 54 requests you add the coroner to Steinberg's Deli, Avenue B and 4th Ave." He turned to Bernie. "Where are the stairs?"

"Straight in to the employees only door, go through and then ten feet to your left."

"Wait here with her for the ambulance."

"But she's dead."

Stavros ignored him, stepping inside, gun still drawn, flashlight held right beside it so he could see what he shot. He couldn't take the chance that the body out front was the only invader of the restaurant. The restaurant was dark and the air was still choked with pepper spray. He carefully went through the employee's only door and then he heard a sound. It was a moaning, thumping sound. He looked up the staircase and there was another blood soaked woman crawling down the stairs, looking eerily like the dead one outside. "NYPD. Freeze."

"Thank God," she said. "I'm hurt bad and I can't see."

"There's an ambulance on the way."

"Can I sit up, please, officer? I think I'll fall."

"Are you armed?"

She shook her head. "No."

He checked her right shoulder with his flashlight and then put the gun in his holster. "Slowly. Careful. Keep your balance."

She slowly rolled over. "I heard a shot. Did you ... Is she ..."

"She killed herself instead of facing arrest. There was nothing I could do."

"Like mother, like daughter," she mumbled, her mind drifting. "I must be making such a mess. Tell them I'm so sorry and I'll clean it all up as soon as I can."

He nodded, humoring her. "I'll be sure to tell them." Stavros didn't like the sound of that so he checked the pulse on her neck. It seemed fast and weak and her skin was cold and clammy. She seemed to be breathing fast and not taking much breath for the effort either. He wasn't a medic but had seen enough people go into shock over the years. He sat next to her and held her knees up on his shoulders. Fortunately the paramedics arrived shortly after.


	41. Helpless

Helpless

Andrew paced, trying to know what to do. He had told 911 of course, but then what? He would just get in the way if he went there. He knew that. But what was happening?

He tried calling 911 but they said they were for dispatching emergencies and they had already dispatched to that location. He tried calling the 9th precinct but they said they had no information to release. No information? They could have walked over and found out. He even tried calling the 19th precinct information number but they didn't know anything about anything. He couldn't figure out what to do.

Was it really Siobhan? How could Bridget survive when Henry, DeLario and Gemma had died? Why wouldn't she just go to Buffalo when he told her to?

He had given up on doing the logical thing and had grabbed his coat when the intercom buzzed. It was Bang, the new night doorman. His English was still tough to understand but Andrew understood "Two police" clearly enough. "Send them right up," he answered.

Andrew recognized Stavros from his first visit to the apartment. "What happened," he said.

Stavros flashed his badge. "Mr. Martin, as you know I am detective Stavros and this officer Toody. We regret to inform you that your wife has died."

"How?"

"By her own hand. She committed suicide rather than be arrested." There was no point for Stavros to withhold any information. There was no longer an active criminal investigation now that the chief suspect was dead.

"Is Bridget still alive?"

"Her sister, Bridget?"

"YES!"

"She was being taken to the ER at Bellevue Hospital when we left."

"Take me there."

Toody looked at Andrew in shock? "Mr. Martin, don't you want to go to your own wife in the morgue instead?"

Stavros elbowed Toody in the ribs.

" Let the dead bury their dead," Andrew dryly said. He took his coat and walked to the elevator. If the police wouldn't help, he would do it himself.

Stavros pushed Toody into the elevator. "As you are a survivor of a homicide and a sudden death we are here to assist you with the release of information and property, and the rendering of other assistance. We will still need you to make the final legal identification of her at some point in time."

Andrew nodded dimly. Of course he hadn't actually seen Siobhan in what, nine months?

They took the elevator down and Andrew got into the back of the patrol car. He laughed. The neighborhood gossips must be talking up a treat with the mad Martins. After everything, he was being taken away by two bobbies in the patrol car parked out front.

The plastic seat in the back of the car was hard and uncomfortable and the police car smelled to Andrew of the vomit of obnoxious drunks. Still, it was getting him there. As the patrol car headed down FDR Drive towards Bellevue on First Avenue, Andrew called Juliet. The time would be ... well it wasn't night in New Zealand he was sure of that much.

It was actually mid-afternoon on Saturday for Juliet as she got the call. Eirian had let her keep the phone with her as she cleaned out the stables so she could check up on her, or just tell her she'd be late. Being late coming home from work was something that Martins seemed to all have in common, she thought as the phone rang. She took it out and saw that it wasn't Eirian but Andrew. "Hello, Dad?"

"Hi, Juliet. Siobhan's dead."

The sound of Juliet yelling "YEE HAH!" about deafened him. She tossed down the rake she had been using to clean the horse apples out of the stalls. "Finally! How did it happen?"

Andrew didn't know. He hadn't bothered to ask. He turned to Stavros, who was behind the wheel. "How did she die?"

"She shot herself rather than face arrest. We actually have it on the dashcam of the car."

"She shot herself," he repeated. "I'll see if I can get you the video."

Toody stared at Stavros, knowing he should say something but Stavros looked back with "Don't bother."

Two of the people from the horse ranch came into the barn. "Is everything alright?"

"My dad's wife just killed herself."

"Oh, you don't mean."

Juliet nodded. "Dead."

"Oh, my dear. Are you alright?"

"I feel faint," Juliet said, pretending to have a swoon in atrocious acting style.

"Get her to the office."

"Nicely played," Andrew said. "I'll check the flight info. Pack when you get home."

"Oh yes, Daddy," she said with a saccharine tone. "Is Bridget there to help you?"

"Bridget was hurt bad. The police are taking me to Bellevue. I'll tell you when I know."

"Oh my, the baby?" Juliet's face blanched.

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"No," Juliet said, struggling to hold back the tears. "She's got to be OK."

"I'll tell you when I know. I'll let you know about the flights."

"Just get me back as fast as you can."

"It may not be as nice."

"I don't care. Just get me home."

Andrew had never been to Bellevue, but everyone knew its reputation was infamous. It was a part of New York's decrepit Health and Hospitals Corporation. It was more famous as a lunatic asylum than as a hospital although he remembered reading that it was so old it was actually established as a Royal hospital by a priest of the Church of England.

The original Bellevue hospital was set back about a block off of 1st Ave and since that time they had built a modern glass facade to serve as a lobby area. Then when you walk in to where people are being treated the reality sets in. The waiting area was filthy. He watched a woman sitting behind a thick glass, shouting at the sick, elderly and maimed to stand up so people could see that there was a line. A black man with a long, grizzled beard in a filthy jeans jacket was yelling at a white girl in a wheelchair me that he was in line and she had to get in line behind him.

A man with what looked like a broken shoulder who's arm was turning black stormed out, shouting, "Screw this crap! I could've been seen in two hours in Brooklyn." A young woman who was eating from a bag of potato crisps despite being in an atmosphere that reeked of disease and injury looked around and said to nobody in particular "I've been here since noon."

Stavros and Toody took Andrew back. What Andrew saw was a far cry from when he took her to NewYork-Presbyterian in November. "We are looking for Bridget Kelly," Stavros said. "Bridget Kelly."

Few even looked up. One nurse who checked a clipboard said "Nobody with that name."

"She was taken here by ambulance less than an hour ago."

"Do you have any idea how many people arrive here by ambulance?"

"About thirty," Andrew said. "Blonde hair."

"Steinberg's Deli T-shirt. Bloody face, stab wound in arm."

"We had a Jane Doe."

"Where is she?"

One of the nurses looked at him as if he were a puddle of dog urine. "We can't know where" ... but was interrupted by the sound of screaming, banging and then a gun shot. A naked man ran bleeding into the main area of the ER but was quickly tasered and tackled by a pair of 300 lbs black security guards. "Got him," said one of the guards, tossing the streaking offender to the ground and cuffing him. A cop quickly followed with arm and leg shackles.

The nurse and an intern quickly ran to the area where the shot came from and returned with a cop whose head was bleeding. "Possible skull fracture. Lover Boy tried to brain him with a fire extinguisher. Then he sprayed it in his face." She guided the cop onto a bed. "We need an X-ray and oxygen."

The rest of the nurses seemed not at all surprised. Apparently this was a typical Friday night at Bellevue. Andrew looked around. It was then that he noticed that a number of the patients were handcuffed to their beds and wearing orange jump suits. He listened for a moment as another one of New York's finest and a baby faced intern who was masquerading as a doctor discussed one orange suited patient. He had a criminal record of rape, sexual assault, and drug possession, was HIV positive, had been arrested for burglary and would be going directly to jail without passing Go or collecting $200 after he got out the hospital.

"They bring prisoners from the jails and Ryker's Island here," Toody said.

In exasperation, Andrew went through the emergency room checking every bed but Bridget wasn't in any of them. "Where is she?"

A nurse tried to check the records but as she flipped through the charts a man was wheeled in by the paramedics. "Bleeding bad," they said. "Knifed up the ass in a bar. Perforated bowels. He's had a unit of plasma. I think he's bleeding internal bad. Pulse 42, blood pressure 68 over 40."

A doctor who looked almost young enough to be in High School cut open his pants with a scalpel to expose gaping knife wounds. Andrew almost fainted at the sight.

The security guard who had downed Nature Boy turned to him. "What is it?"

"I can't find ... my girlfriend. She was brought here. I think she's a Jane Doe. About thirty, blonde hair. Facial bleeding."

"Try the DCU."

"The what?"

"Diagnostic Care Unit. Look, Man. They just bring them in and try to stabilize them so they'll live here. I think they stitched her up and moved her about fifteen minutes ago."

"That one is pre-op," said a nurse who had just walked in.

"What for," Andrew asked.

"Ask the doctors there. First Floor."

They went up one floor and found the administrator in pre-op. "My fiancé is here. Bridget Kelly. Or she may be Jane Doe. Blonde about thirty. She's pregnant. I've got to find her and tell the anesthesiologist."

Toody pulled Stavros aside. "His wife just died and and he's already engaged and she's pregnant?"

"These big Wall Street guys move really fast in their relationships."

"I'll check the records," the administrator said.

Andrew went back to the patient area and the administrator followed after him. "Hey, you can't do that."

"Bridget," he hollered, checking every bed. "Bridget."

She went to call the guards but Stavros took her aside and pulled out his badge. "NYPD. Urgent business. Let him go."

After a half a dozen beds, Andrew recognized the color of a mop of hair attached to a face covered with bandages. He took her hand. Even though the wristband said Jane Doe he knew who exactly who it was. "Bridget?"

"Andrew," she asked with a muffled, hoarse voice.

"I'm here. It's going to be OK. Everything will be OK."

A skinny middle aged Indian wearing surgical scrubs walked in. "I am Doctor Vivek Poply. We're going to get you anesthetized for surgery."

"She's pregnant," Andrew said.

He turned to Bridget. "Is that true?"

"Eleven weeks."

"We can do this with a local but it will be harder for you. We will have to lock your head down."

"Local. My baby."

He nodded. "Alright."

The Administrator came back. "You can't be here. You don't have a HIPAA release for confidential information on this patient on file."

Bridget turned her head. "I authorize it."

"It's not in writing."

"I will write it."

"But you can't see."

Stavros flipped the her chart over on its clip board and handed it to her with his pen. She scrawled "Tell Andrew everything. Bridget Kelly" on the back.

"But it's not the approved form."

Toody walked up behind her. "Well I am a cop and I say it's legal."

She stormed off. Toody growled at her as she left. "I swear they staff this hospital with MTA throw-aways."

An oriental woman in surgical scrubs came back with Dr. Poply. "I am Dr. Chen. I understand exactly how you feel. But you do understand that your risk of permanent damage is higher."

"Protect my baby. Local."

Dr. Poply pulled a large hypodermic off a tray. "Are any of you gentlemen squeamish?"

Andrew figured that was his queue to turn around. He was dazed and confused. "What all is happening?"

"I signed the release," Bridget said.

"I witnessed it," Toody said. "I'm a police officer and he's her fiancé."

Stavros nodded, pulling back his jacket to show his badge. "I witnessed it too."

Dr. Chen nodded and gestured for Andrew to follow her. They stepped out of Bridget's earshot. "First, let me tell you the good things. She's not in danger. She is stable."

"The baby?"

"I have no idea. We can't do an accurate ultrasound without her bladder being full. We can't safely operate if she has a full stomach. She could throw up and choke."

"And the bad news?"

"I'm an ophthalmologic trauma surgeon. She was stabbed in the face including the eyes."

"How bad? Will she be blind?"

"I won't know how bad until I get in there."

Andrew's face went white. He felt utterly helpless. He had no idea what to do.

Stavros patted him on the back. "Trauma is what Bellevue does best. Nobody does it better. But right now it's in God's hands."


	42. Dreaming

Dreaming

An elderly man named Russ volunteered to drive Juliet back to Eirian's house in the smallest car she'd ever been in, an elderly Toyota Starlet Diesel that Russ had repainted in a bright cherry red. He called it Ruby as he patted the dash affectionately. Unfortunately for Juliet some of the horses could run faster than Ruby.

He wouldn't take her to the airport, but for a couple of hundred dollars of Andrew's money and after a lot of begging he agreed to drop Juliet off at a petrol station where Eirian would meet her. If Eirian would do her part then Juliet would have enough time to make it to the 9:55 PM flight she'd booked out of Auckland Airport.

It took Juliet less than ten minutes to get her passport, wallet, pack her computer and throw what clothes she saw into the duffel bag.

Fortunately Eirian wanted to get rid of Juliet as much as Juliet wanted to go so she left her office at the Leigh Marine Laboratory, leaving her students to prepare a new exhibit and group tour at the Marine Discovery Centre. By the time Ruby managed to pull into the Mobil station at the intersection of State Highway 1 and Station Road East in Wellsford, Eirian was already waiting at the pumps, fueled up and all ready to go.

As Eirian began the drive down to Auckland, they soon passed the Oasis Liquor Centre. Why couldn't she just get … a small drink, she wondered. No, she refused to give Eirian the satisfaction. Instead she pointedly focused her gaze on the golden arches of a McDonald's a couple of blocks down the road. "Thank you," she said to Eirian. "I really appreciate it."

"You sounded pretty desperate."

Juliet nodded. "I was. Very desperate."

A few moments later she saw a sign that was a beacon of hope, Auckland - 84 KM. She google mapped the distance. With luck in an hour and a half she would be able to buy a real cheeseburger without hearing how it would kill her and how it was depleting the rain forests.

Eirian popped in a CD. To Juliet's surprise it was Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison. She'd expected harps or classical music. Soon they were singing along to Folsom Prison Blues.

In the middle of Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog, Juliet's phone began to sing "God save the king." She pulled it out. It was Andrew of course. That was the sound it played for him sending a text. She read it, and she became silent. When Eirian asked why, she read it out loud. "Bridget hurt but alive. In operating room. Will live. Baby unknown."

Then came the hard part, explaining who Bridget was and why she was pregnant with Andrew's baby. Finally after traveling for a mile with her jaw gaping wide with surprise Eirian said "That's bizarre."

"They don't call us the Mad Martins for nothing."

They went from passing little houses in the town to driving at freeway speed by cattle grazing in bright green pastures and then past undeveloped country where thick stands of trees stood. She'd seen areas that hadn't been built up of course, but there was just SO much of it it that it made Juliet almost nervous. She tried to focus her attention on the music and her facebook page.

Auckland, 66 KM, she saw on a sign. Come on, come on, come on, she thought. She just wanted to get off this country road and onto a real highway and get there. Warkworth, a fly speck on a very green map. Did that sign say Auckland, 69 KM? No, she couldn't have seen that right? On top of the one lane country road, they had construction, narrowing it and lowering the speed limit to a halting 50. After an eternity, they reached a "Works End" sign and the speed limit went back to a full 80 KM as they went past more palm trees and pastures. Even that was perhaps only 45 miles an hour. The road was windy and more than a little bumpy. Up and down they went, past a "scenic preserve" that looked like the Lord of the Rings. Up and down they went on the road. If Juliet had eaten lunch, she'd have lost it by now. The ride in Eirian's ute was hardly as smooth as Solomon's limo going down Park Avenue. Her head was splitting. Did she look as green as she felt? Maybe that's why Eirian said "Hang in there. We'll be there soon."

The sign by the road read "Slow down. High crash rate." Juliet didn't want to slow down. She wanted to go faster.

Right before the toll collection place, there was more construction. The road slowed to a crawl again. Fortunately after that the road opened up to a breathtaking 100 KM. That was what, 62 MPH? She saw a sign, Auckland, 39 KM. She could make it another half hour. The toll taking was also completely automatic. You even paid on line with the web address conveniently on signs by the side of the road.

The sun had set by the time Juliet opened her eyes again. She hadn't slept but had allowed the sound of the road to tell her where she was. The traffic had become much heavier. The highway now had two lanes and sometimes three. It was raining. It had showered several times but now it was coming down. She rejoiced when she saw a bus on the road. It was blue and said Northern Express on it. Mass transit was definitely a sign of civilization and this even looked like an airport bus!

They drove over a bridge. She remembered the bridge from the night they arrived. They passed buildings, REAL buildings as tall as their apartment. She saw a funny tall cone shaped tower that was taller than all the buildings. It was gaudily lit and had a ball stuck in the middle of it. "That's the Sky Tower," Eirian said. "It's the tallest structure in New Zealand. There's a big casino there and the globe in the middle is a restaurant that rotates around," Eirian said. Juliet nodded politely, not wanting to tell her that it was simply Las Vegas style butt ugly.

They went over another bridge and in the gloom she thought she saw small boats and then of course there was always more and more construction. There were signs on the freeway but she had given up long ago trying to read them. She couldn't get the strange names and even if she could she had no idea where they were or what it would tell her.

Finally the road felt different. This was a city street and not a Highway. She even saw a jet with its landing lights on and they went through a roundabout. They had to be near! "Please pull over," Juliet said. "Right now." Eirian nodded and took them into a Shell station parking lot. Juliet opened the door and puked into the gutter. "Sorry, car sick," she explained.

They drove past what looked like rental parting lots. Finally she saw a big blue sign for the international terminal. As Eirian pulled up to the public drop off area of the international terminal, Juliet grabbed the duffel bag and her computer.

"I hope to see you again soon, under better circumstances."

"I hope so too," Juliet said in hopefully as sincere a tone as Eirian used, and then thanked Eirian politely and went into the terminal.

"Auckland International Airport. Where New Zealand touches the world," read the sign. Sure, sure. It had quaint but rather ugly elements of local art like a wall of native sculptures by baggage claim but it was just another airport.

Her flight was on Air New Zealand connecting to American in Los Angeles. She went to the Air New Zealand counter with credit card and passport in hand. People wrinkled their noses at her as she stood in line. The Air New Zealand ticket woman looked like she would wretch as she said "You can't fly on a plane smelling like … like …"

"Like shit, yes, I know." She started rummaging through the bag. "I got it volunteering cleaning the stables at a horseback therapy for handicapped children place, but my stepmother was just killed and I need to go back to America instantly. Please."

"I fully sympathize but it wouldn't be fair to the other passengers."

Juliet started rummaging through the duffel bag, pulling out a red velvet party dress, pumps, a pink fuzzy sweater and stockings. "Look, just let me have the ticket. I'll go into the bathroom, clean up as well as I can, throw away the old clothes and change into these."

A fellow traveler pointed. "There are showers for passengers upstairs in the flight lounge. You could clean up there."

"See, I can shower over there. I promise I'll shower until I am clean. I don't want to stink like this either. Just give me the ticket please. If you have no sympathy for the dead, my stepmother's sister is having a baby and she's in the hospital and I just have to be there."

"Right, sure. How do I know you're not just making it all up?"

Bridget pulled out her Blackberry and showed the woman in her cheap, mock pin stripe business suit the text message Andrew had just sent. "See."

With that and after having received a lot of dirty looks, Juliet finally got her tickets and her bag checked. She even was given a plastic trash bag to carry everything in by a supervisor.

Going through security was actually easier smelling horrible than normal. Everyone was happy to give her cuts ahead in line so they wouldn't end up smelling like her and she was definitely not the one that security wanted to do a pat down search on.

Right past security she found the "Collection Point" where her fellow traveler said to get a set of towels and soap. It was $10 New Zealand for a set. They even had a vending machine that sold micro-miniature shampoo bottles and tooth paste for outrageous prices. She got two towel sets and went to shower until she couldn't smell herself any more, all the while dreaming of the golden arches she saw that was across from the showers, complete with quarter pounders, fries and diet coca cola made from genuine chemicals.


	43. Finalizing the Divorce

Finalizing the Divorce

Andrew watched the doctors wheel Bridget out to the operating room. Had he just called her his girlfriend? He wasn't sure, but he thought he may have even called her his fiancé.

He sent Juliet a status report text. "Bridget hurt but alive. In operating room. Will live. Baby unknown."

"You can't do anything here," Stavros said.

"What do I do?"

"She won't be out for hours. Let's get done and out of the way something you'll need to do anyway. Do it before you have things you must do. Let's get that body identified."

Andrew shrugged and nodded. "What I'd give for a pot of tea right now."

"Come. I'll buy you a nice Earl Grey. It's just a block or two away."

Like all good cops, both Stavros and Toody knew every 24 hour Dunkin Donut in town. Inside, Stavros popped for two Earl Greys with sugar and lemon and a plain croissant for Andrew. He numbly started to sip from a cup. It wasn't good but it wasn't that bad. Meanwhile, Toody bought himself another Dunkaccino.

Instead of driving right back to Bellevue, they went around the corner in the other direction to the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Health Care Center building and drove down into the underground parking lot. "What is this," Andrew asked.

Toody opened the car door for him. "The morgue. We're here."

Conveniently right down the street from the hospital, Andrew thought. He supposed it made sense. He sighed and numbly stepped out of the car, taking a cup of tea with. He waited by large stainless steel double doors with Toody as Stavros went back to talk to the morgue attendants. He sipped his tea as Toody ate cookies. There was a sign on the wall. "Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae." His Latin was no longer what it once was but with some concentration and effort he understood it. "Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living."

Had death delighted in helping the living tonight, Andrew wondered. He guessed it had. His divorce had been finalized tonight. Siobhan's reign of terror was over. No alimony, no court appearances, no extended trial, no scandal about his being married to a mass murderer.

He had seen enough crime shows on the tellie to have an expectation of a bunch of drawers containing dead bodies in neatly zippered black body bags. He had mentally prepared himself for Siobhan on a slab but that was not got him. It was a bitter cherry stench and the smell of dead human meat.

A morgue attendant in dirty whites and rubber rain wellies unlocked a drawer and slid it out. The hair is what he noticed first. He had just left that same mop of blonde hair a few minutes ago. There was a hole in this head. Her face had been mercilessly battered but was he imagining that she was somehow larger and heavier looking than he remembered? Well, he would never find out if they did look different side by side now. He stood and stood, staring. "Can you make a positive identification," said the attendant?

"Siobhan has a twin sister. They look just the same."

"Any distinguishing scars or marks?"

Stavros looked at her. "No tattoo on this one."

Andrew looked up, puzzled. "Bridget doesn't have a tattoo. I'd have seen it."

Stavros gave that wide grin of his and considered correcting Andrew but thought better of it.

Andrew stood there, confused. Could it be Bridget on the slab and Siobhan in the operating room? Oh God! Could fate have tortured him so? "One is pregnant. One just had twins," Andrew finally said. "By C section."

The attendant pulled the drawer out further and pulled away the plastic tarp around her, revealing savage slashes and stab wounds in the pubic region. Her belly had bright red tiger striping of stretch marks and a large, loose fold of skin. "I can show you the C-section line if you want."

Andrew shook his head. The attendant slid back the drawer but Andrew said "Could I have a few minutes alone together?"

The attendant nodded. "I understand, and my sincere condolences."

When both officers and the attendant were out of the room, Andrew pulled out his phone and took several snapshots of the dead face with the gaping bullet wound on the slab. Perhaps it would seem ghoulish but part of him wanted to frame it as evidence that she was out of his life forever just as he also had the impulse to drive a stake through her heart so she couldn't possibly come back. He wondered if Juliet would want to see it as well. Perhaps but Juliet was so squeamish around Macawi's body. He sent the best picture to James's mobile phone for Tim. He probably had his own photos by now and was no doubt drinking bourbon and smoking one of his overpriced Cuban cigars but Andrew still thought it would be the polite thing to do under the circumstances.

After signing the paperwork and receiving a bag with the few personal effects that were on her, they left.


	44. The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges

With a little plastic bag of Siobhan's personal effects stuffed in his coat pocket, Toody and Stavros took Andrew back to Bellevue. By then it was almost 2:00 in the morning and the weather was cold and very windy. "Are you sure there's nobody we can call for you," Stavros said.

"No," Andrew said, shaking his head. "No family in the USA."

"How about friends?"

Andrew thought for a moment. Tobias Schecht was in Omaha and even if he were here he wouldn't want to ruin his night, not over Siobhan. With Olivia gone there was nobody at work he cared that much about, certainly not Tim Arbogast. The closest he had was Solomon, and he wouldn't wake him at this hour when he could get a taxi home.

How would he explain this one to Tobias? He had so much to explain to so many. Or maybe he didn't? Maybe he didn't have to explain anything to anyone.

He found the operating room area on the eleventh floor. It was not nearly as dingy or disgusting smelling or crowded as the emergency room. At first glance, it looked like there was a couch he could stretch out on while he waited. Unfortunately the couch had divisions in it so it was more like a line of armchairs all bolted together. A teen-aged girl was texting and loudly talking without end about the same inane drivel that Juliet always did as her parents paced back and forth and a little brother quietly played with a video game unit. He just wanted to yank the phone out of her hands and smash it, anything to get her to shut up.

He was so exhausted he tried lying down on the floor. Unfortunately just when he was dozing off a nurse came over and checked to see if he was still alive. "No I am not dead," he explained. "I am just waiting for my girlfriend to come out of the operating room. Bridget Kelly."

"Let me take you to post-op. I think there are open beds there."

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" He staggered up and followed her to a brightly lit room with several beds with people wired up to monitors on them. One bed was empty. He took his shoes off and crawled into it, wrapping the thin white blanket around himself.

Had he actually called her his girlfriend again, he wondered to himself as he dozed off to sleep.

After Juliet finished in the shower at Auckland International Airport and returned her towel sets, she considered what to do next. She was going to be stuck on that plane for a LONG time. She knew what she really wanted but that wasn't going to be readily available and she had told Eirian she would be good. As a substitute, she went for something to help her pass the time. Across the way from the showers was a store called Bookmarque.

She browsed the circular display of best seller books in the middle. The Lost Years was about a girl hunting for a killer. She didn't want any killers. Guilty Wives was about four women in prison. Definitely not Guilty Wives. She didn't want to think about prisons. Sacré Bleu. Hmm, it was about Vincent Van Gogh's suicide. No, no suicides. Besides, his paintings always made her nervous. She didn't want anything that was just like Catherine or Siobhan. She didn't want reality. She wanted to ESCAPE. Finally she saw A Dance with Dragons. She wanted to see how Queen Daenarys Targaryen of Meereen, the mother of dragons, was doing. Plus she had a rather soft spot for the Imp, Tyrion Lannister.

She thought Bookmarque was truly a civilized place. It was a book store that was also an upscale bar. She thought it was a truly great idea. You could read and as you read you could get espresso with or without something warming in it.

It was all so silly she thought. Why couldn't she order what she really needed? She had the money. Everything was about a tiny bit of time one side or the other of an arbitrary line that changed from place to place. If she were eighteen, she could walk up to the bar here and order a screwdriver but in New York she'd have to wait another three years. Why? Two years ago when she went on a European vacation with Catherine, all the laws were completely different. In Greece she legally bought anything she wanted. In Germany she drank beer with her restaurant dinners. In Portugal she had wine. What was the big deal?

She walked around the shopping area, carefully avoiding the hideous New Zealand tourist souvenirs. She stopped by Bennetts candy shop and bought three of their 70% cacao dark chocolate bars. She was approaching THAT time and a little bit of chocolate would be just what she needed. Then she saw exactly what she needed – the TravelPharm Pharmacy. There she bought a couple of two ounce travel bottles of her boarding school drink of choice, Purell hand sanitizer, along with a packet of Nausicalm motion sickness pills and Apo-Cetirizine antihistamines as backup.

She needed salt and something to act as a filter. Getting the salt was easy. She just went back to Burger King and ordered two Whopper value meals heavy pickle and lettuce with fries and coke and grabbed herself a hand full of salt packets. A bargain tourist T-shirt provided the filter. A few minutes of magic in the bathroom and she had a nicely spiked coke that would ease her way back to New York.

Meanwhile, Bridget lay on her back in the operating room. The IV drip was cold and uncomfortable. Her head was in a clamp the world seemed to be a sea of bright lights and colors. Then some sort of equipment seemed to be placed over her eyes but she could still hear people surrounding her, talking about what they were doing to her. The oxygen mask was cold and uncomfortable. She was so tired. Soon she was with The Three Stooges. They were in Chicago to film their new movie. Somehow she knew she had dreamed of The Three Stooges over and over. Why did she keep dreaming of The Three Stooges? She didn't have time to wonder about it as she asked Shemp what the problem was. Moe said they hadn't been paid by their previous producers and were working on this film just to make ends meet. They all had wives and children to feed.


	45. Flying High

**Flying High**

It was late but Juliet was too nervous and upset to feel relaxed and tired. Juliet was used to flying first class. She didn't have a high enough limit on her credit card for a first class ticket so she was forced to slum it in business premier class. So she was determined to squeeze every bit of comfort she could out of the flight.

She had her burger in the pre-flight lounge but there were too many nosy kids around for her to be able to enjoy her drink. Besides, she didn't want to risk falling asleep there.

She had asked for the most private seat available. She wasn't in the mood to talk to someone who was hideously boring for ten thousand miles. The airlines gave her a window seat. Even before she sat down and stowed her bag, she had her doubts. It wasn't a normal seat but some sort of giant pink wrap around pod thing that reminded her of nothing more than Lady Gaga's egg throne. Even worse, you couldn't lean back at all.

The person in the seat next to her got a glass of wine. All she got a little plate with some cheese, a bag of "crisps" or potato chips and a bottle of water. She wasn't concerned. She had come prepared.

The pre-flight safety video was a strange one. Eirian said as they drove to Auckland airport that Air New Zealand had funny ones but Juliet couldn't figure out what was funny about everyone in black uniforms or stupid sports uniforms. Finally at the end they said "Crazy about rugby" and showed a football, but it made no sense and even if it did she couldn't care less. She knew Eirian would just say "Kiwi Humor." That still didn't make it at all funny.

While she waited for the take-off, she went through the "amenities" box. It had small tubes of moisturizer, lip balm and some hand crème. That was going to be useful. She slipped out of her high heels and put on the funky airplane socks. The worst part was the stupidly cute eye shades. Hers had ski goggles. She wasn't in the mood for strange Kiwi cute. She just wanted to wash New Zealand out of her mind.

After they turned off the fasten seat belt light, the stewardess passed around little hot towels from a plate. Juliet took one and wiped her face and hands and then she took her drink out of the Burger King bag and took a deep and long hit, until her throat was on fire. She had some home brew that was harsh before but this felt the worst. Her throat must have been far more burnt from upchucking after the drive down, she told herself. She'd drunk Purell before lots of times and never felt anything like this.

Her stomach began to feel queasy. It must be motion sickness like in the ute, she told herself. Something extra in her stomach would help, something salty. Unfortunately, she had eaten her fries when she had her cheeseburger. She tried the crisps in the bag and they weren't bad but like all airline food it just was not nearly enough. The screen in front of her said "Kia Ora" – whatever that meant – and "Touch the screen to begin" and so she did.

It was a decent sized airline screen, bigger than her notebook. She went through the menu until she found "Snacks & Drinks." She ordered cheese and crackers. Eventually a balding male flight attendant arrived with a tiny bit of brie, a small slice of chedder, a piece of dried fruit and a little bag with two Arnott's biscuit but really looked just little crackers to her. She thanked him politely for the undersized offering.

The two crackers didn't settle her stomach. Maybe she was getting motion sickness on the plane. She tried to just unwind with a movie. Unfortunately they were all ones that had been out for many months. If she hadn't seen them or downloaded them it was because she had no interest. A very Harold & Kumar Christmas? Arthur Christmas? It was almost May. Right. Happy Feet Two? She was over the age of six. Melancholia? A depressing end of the world? It kind of fit her mood. My week with Marilyn? She went with Twilight Breaking Dawn part one. She stretched the seat forward until it made out into a cot and lay down on her stomach and drank her super-soda. It still scorched horribly on the way down but as she drank she cared less and less.

As Edward finally hears Bella's baby Renesme's thoughts and Bella's back and knee break from Renesme's weight inside her, she found she had to go to the bathroom right now or she'd make a mess of her dress. She ran to the bathrooms two rows behind her but it was locked and someone was waiting by each door. The Premium Economy bathrooms had a line too. It was as if the whole plane wanted to brush their teeth and put on their jammies for bed all at once. To make matters worse Juliet could feel her stomach rising in her chest and that awful taste of bile again in her mouth. Finally she went in desperation all the way back to the back of the plane to find an open bathroom. She pulled down her panties to sit down and go but it was coming up as bad from both ends. She ended up having to alternate, puking in her own smelly waste and that nasty smell of airline toilets.

She tried to clean herself and the bathroom up, but it was a hopeless cause. After she was quite sure she was thoroughly emptied out, she opened the door and started back to her seat. She felt light headed and unbalanced and found herself grabbing onto the seat backs and leaning on them as she went staggered back to her seat. A stewardess came up to her and asked "Are you alright, missie?"

Juliet wanted to hang tough. She wanted to be strong. But she found herself shaking her head instead. "Airsick. Bad."

"Oh, poor girl. Let me help you back to your seat."

She accepted the help, not wanting to. She didn't want people to think she was drunk but she needed the help if she didn't want to crawl back to her seat. "Do you have diabetes," the stewardess asked.

Juliet shook her head. "No."

"You smell like my mother does when she doesn't eat and her blood sugar goes into what they call diabetic ketoacidosis."

"No diabetes. And I ate before the flight."

"What?"

"A cheeseburger and fries."

"Not good if you get airsick. Next time, avoid anything with grease or is fried and avoid the curry. And the cheese in the cheeseburger is not a good idea. Too rich on a flight."

"Great. I had cheese and crackers here."

"Now you know."

They finally reached her seat. The stewardess helped her lie back down. "Let me get you some things to help a bit."

Juliet just lay there feeling woozy and sick. She was afraid she would start puking again. She grabbed her air sickness bag and closed her eyes, hoping that would help. Unfortunately it didn't.

The stewardess returned in a while with some lemon slices, saltines and a can of ginger ale. "Try these. Sucking lemon wedges is an old remedy."

"Thank you."

She ate the crackers and sucked on the lemon but it didn't seem to settle her stomach. It was late and she tried lying down to get some sleep but she wasn't comfortable lying down. She hadn't had anything like bronchitis since Florida but nonetheless she felt breathless and as she fought for air she could hear that bronchitis crackling sound.

She didn't have a fever. In fact she felt so cold she was shivering as the jet cruised high. She didn't understand why even though she was so cold and she was still sweating. She put the cot back up into a chair seat. She knew she'd never be able to sleep fighting for breath like that. She turned off her air vent and rang the flight attendant button for more blankets, but of course they never come when you need them.

While the other passengers got to enjoy a night's sleep, she had to pee. She would try to sleep as she sat up but just as she began to doze off in that overwhelming urge struck. Back and forth she went, peeing and then thirst would force her to drink another can of ginger ale. It was a cycle that went throughout the night and as it wore on her head began to throb.

In the morning when the others were eating a fine breakfast she still couldn't eat more than a few crackers. Even worse, by now her headache was blindingly painful. Despite the headache, it was only during those last few hours of the flight that she was well enough to stretch out and sleep. Unfortunately all too soon they had to wake her to fill out her U.S. Customs and Border Protection Declaration Form 6059B. As foggy headed as she was, it was still easier to fill it out than the form to get into New Zealand. She knew her home address was 626 Park Place Apt 1400 in New York City. She even knew her flight number. It was right on her TV screen. Score one for Air New Zealand. She of course lied through her teeth about not having been touching or handling livestock.

When the plane pulled up to the gate, she was utterly exhausted. The local time was 2:59 PM. That meant it was 6:00 at home. Even before the plane's door was open, she had her Blackberry phone out and was calling Andrew.


	46. The Key

**The Key**

Tim was the first one up in the house that morning. He often was and more and more he needed some peace and quiet time. That time was rarer and rarer at the house lately with the twins glued to his legs. They followed him everywhere, even the bathroom, especially Dash. He kept telling himself that the boy's whole world had shattered but that didn't make it easy.

He needed some time to unwind. Martha kept telling him that. He certainly could feel it. Unfortunately there wasn't much of interest. April was a boring time of the year for Tim. There was nothing to hunt. At best he was limited to fishing. Trout season had opened but sitting by a stream was just too passive. Fishing on a boat was even worse. He was looking forward to the Full Flower Moon which was the 5th of May this year. He would go midnight horseshoe crabbing on the Hampton Bay beach and make up one of his favorite Thai foods, Maengda talay or Water Beetle dip.

He went downstairs to the kitchen and warmed up last night's stir fry crab with sweet chili sauce and bok choy and a glass of cà phê đá on the side. "What's good for dinner it's good for breakfast," he had learned from the mama-sans in Viet Nam. They were right of course. If you started the night's festivities with it, it was a great way to start the morning.

As James walked downstairs, he set the alert on his phone from off to vibrate went through his messages. One caught his eye. It would definitely make Tim's day. He followed his nose to the kitchen and found Tim serving himself. "There's more," Tim said.

"I think I'll get some cereal," he said, opening a cabinet and pulling out a bowl. "I got some good news from Andrew."

"Oh?"

James smiled as he brought the picture up and handed it the phone to Tim. "Guess who."

Tim looked at the picture admiringly. "Best news I've had all week. How did she get it?"

"Dunno. No message, just one word in the message. "Siobhan."

He picked up his bowl with a crinkle of a smile. "Come on into the office." James followed, knowing what lay at the other end of the rainbow. On the way into his oak lined office, Tim grabbed his ammo can humidor.

In an ancient male bonding ritual, Tim handed James one of his Havana H Upmann Petit Corona cigars and then poured two splashes of his finest, Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve Irish Whiskey. They lit their cigars and enjoyed a puff of the earthy, coffee tastes and the beautiful blue smoke.

Then with the cigar in hand Tim raised one of the glasses sniffed it, reveling in the rich, almost oily aroma with hints of chocolate, leather, dried plum and toffee.

"Here is to a thing that is dead

It's Siobhan's ugly and perforated head

My friend showed me the picture

That was blessed to me than holy scripture

Because she's in Hell and I am drinking instead"

James nodded, still holding his glass.

"'Twas once on a morning so weary

I found on my iPhone a picture so cheery

With her brains all whipped

And in the morgue with her clothes stripped

I said 'You finally are where you should be, my dearie.'"

With that, they both drank down the rich, silky, and oily brew, savoring the wondrous banquet of lemon curd, malt sugar, honeysuckle and fresh butter with juicy black fruits. They let the nutty richness coat their mouths and linger. Finally Tim wet the glasses again.

"Siobhan Martin was a worthless bitch:

Her ass was eaten up with seven year itch.

She spoke to Henry in a sluttish manner,

As if she were the goddess of glamour

When really she was Macbeth's witch"

They didn't leave the house all day.

It was not such a happy morning for Sam, Sophie, Bernie and Moe along with a Larry their insurance agent. Sam was in shock. It was Shabbat. Things like this shouldn't happen on the Sabbath. When the police finally let them into their own deli, Sophie was aghast at the trail of blood on the floor. "What do we tell the customers?"

"The truth," Larry said. "Someone broke in and attacked your sandwich girl. The attacker was stopped and is in custody. Bridget was hospitalized."

Bernie grimaced. "In custody at the morgue."

"I hope Bridget's alright," Larry said. "She always had a smile and she always got my order right."

Moe shook his head. "She was always a very good employee, very nice to work with," Moe said as he reached for the bucket mop.

Larry stopped him. "Sophie, get your business insurance policy. I want to see if we'll pay for a crime scene cleaner to come in."

"A crime scene cleaner?"

He nodded. "They're companies that clean up messes like this. I think you're covered and besides, you're my lunch restaurant. I really want you to get this all cleaned up and disposed of correctly before my Monday grilled chicken sandwich and kasha varnishkes."

Sophie took her mobile out of her purse. "Let me check."

As Sophie went upstairs to pull the policy from the file cabinet in the office, Larry pulled out his camera and began taking pictures of the mess. "This should justify the claim." He shook his head at the amount of mess. "This is all human blood?"

"She was bleeding bad," Bernie said. "I can show you." He pulled out his iPhone.

"You're kidding," Larry said.

He started the recording. "I was going to upload the arrest to my facebook page."

The four men all watched in fascinated horror. "Wow," Larry said. "This is better than reality TV."

"Oh, it's in better than broadcast quality. It's 1080HD resolution."

Stavros's voice came from the phone. "NYPD. Raise your hands over your head."

Bernie smiled, excitedly. "The good part is coming up."

"Damn it, I'm Bridget. Siobhan is in there with a gun. Go in and shoot her before she comes out and shoots me."

"If you're Bridget show me your right shoulder."

"What?"

"Slowly, one finger only. Right shoulder. Show me under the shirt."

Then a few moments later "BANG" went the sound of Siobhan's gun and the phone jerked as Bernie tried to follow Siobhan as she dropped to the ground. He clearly was shaking and for a moment he even had his hand over the lens.

"Can I see that again," Larry asked, and of course Bernie had to do an encore.

Unfortunately their viewing pleasure was abruptly terminated by Sophie's angry voice. "You're all sick. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

She was at a yard sale watching an old black and white TV. The shows were old too. Westerns and an old Science Fiction show called The Outer Limits. She rummaged around for suspender buttons for Andrew's work pants. She found some that would work, but they looked more like buttons from her mother's old tweed coat, not presentable for the office. As she searched, she accidentally spilled a box of pins. She tried to get them all up, but of course you can't pick them all up with your fingers and there were no magnets.

She went back to the TV and found herself inside a Western. The Sheriff had confiscated everyone's guns and was going to sell them to the Army so they would have a peaceful town but the robber gang came with blowtorches and threated to burn him down if he didn't hand them all over. Of course he did, giving them the old six shooters.

Then she was on the phone with Siobhan. She said she was going to steal her baby and sell him for revenge.

She got a steak knife at the garage sale to protect her baby with. She knew when Siobhan was coming and she lay in wait. She leaped out, stabbing, but when she swung for the neck and slashed it was Juliet instead. Fortunately it was not deep.

Siobhan called again, gloating about how she would outsmart her and destroy her.

Bridget began screaming "You will rot in Hell forever and ever. You will rot in Hell forever and ever. I will kill you. I will kill you. You will rot in Hell forever and ever."

With her heart pounding, she woke up, breathing hard, paralyzed and unable to scream, her heart pounding. She opened her eyes and while she could sense light she could not see. She put her hands to her face and there were bandages on. Andrew's voice said "It's alright. It's alright."

She tried to think, to remember. "Siobhan?"

"Quite dead. I saw the corpse."

"My baby?"

"I don't know."

"My eyes?"

"I don't know.

Andrew looked at her. It was the same hair he had seen on a slab, the same face. He rang the call bell for a nurse. There was a chart written on a dry erase board above her head. He couldn't figure it out. Eventually a nurse came and checked the notes. "Good morning. Are you thirsty? How about some orange juice?"

Bridget shrugged. "I guess, some."

"Good." She thrust a juice bottle into Bridget's hands. "Drink until you burst."

"What about my baby?"

"You need a full bladder to try to do an accurate fetal heartbeat monitor. I'll get some orderlies to wheel you into a room."

"What about her eyes," Andrew asked.

"The doctor will have to say."

Bridget drank up and even continued to drink even after the orderlies came and wheeled her out. Andrew grabbed his coat and shuffled behind, still not at all awake. Fortunately he spied a break room with coffee and swiped himself a cup of the bitter brew. After a maze of corridors and elevators, they wheeled her into half of a room. A woman in a cast was sleeping on the other side of the curtain. By the time the orderlies parked her bed, Bridget had finished the pint bottle of orange juice and was most of the way through a container of milk.

He sat down hard, weary from lack of sleep. He wondered what he was doing there. He could leave. There would be nobody stopping him. Yet he stayed. Was it curiosity about what would happen? Was he doing financial planning? Did he want to know about the baby? Yes, he did have to admit that he wanted to know about the baby. His baby. His son. He tried to tell himself it was just to safeguard his financial interests but he knew he was kidding himself.

He watched her finish the milk off and then rang for a nurse, figuring by the time one actually came Bridget would be close to primed. In reality, Andrew had to go out into the halls and ask all the nurses for someone to come and help. By the time he got one to come back, Bridget could barely hold it in.

The nurse carried a portable fetal heartbeat monitor in her hand. "Before I start I want to say that a fetal heartbeat monitor tells well that a baby is receiving oxygen and has a strong heartbeat but most of the time when it doesn't detect a strong heartbeat there isn't a problem. Do you understand?"

"I think so." She was still worried sick and felt for Andrew's hand, squeezing it tightly.

The nurse pulled up Bridget's hospital nightie. Andrew of course had to sneak a peek. Yes, it was all still there under there. Then the nurse squirted a bit of clear goo under her belly button and positioned a wand like probe. There was an odd sound from the portable unit. At first they heard a burst of static and popping noises and then a swish swish of a pulse. The nurse shook her head and moved the probe around more, seemingly going deeper and deeper around in frustration as they heard bursts of static and squeaks. "Is that me," Bridget asked.

The nurse handed Bridget the little box with the speaker and started probing lower down. "I'm not sure."

Bridget's face grew more and more tense as the crackle burst from her hands and then grew silent again. It became like wind blowing through trees or waves on a beach. Then the nurse stopped moving the probe when she found a sound like a galloping horse or a train whooshing down the tracks with a strong pound and then a weaker one and then a strong pound and then a weaker. "That's it," finally she said, smiling and pointing at the speaker box. "That's the baby."

Bridget visibly relaxed. "He's alive. Thank God. She smiled broadly as she listened to the monitor. "That's so cool!"

Andrew nodded. "That sounds fast. Is he playing rugby in there or what?

The nurse nodded. "It's very fast. It's around 140 beats a minute." She showed the monitor heart rate to Andrew. "That's normal."

"Thank you," Bridget said to the nurse. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Andrew studied the scene carefully. "What about a sonogram?"

The nurse shrugged. "You can ask the doctor but I don't see the need. I doubt if they'll order one."

"Where is the doctor? We still haven't seen the surgeon from last night."

"Asleep? Operating on other patients? I don't know."

"When will I get to speak with the doctor?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. When they come around on rounds."

"When's that?"

"It's just one senior doctor doing rounds for the whole floor."

"God. I could be at UHW in Cardiff arguing with the NHS."

As the nurse helped Bridget let out the orange juice and milk, Andrew went looking for the doctor. Eventually he found him. His name was Dr. Najibullah. He looked frighteningly like Saddam Hussein and spoke with a very thick accent. Andrew thought he could understand Paki English well but Najibullah's accent was nothing short of painful.

He read Bridget's chart. "The transcriptions on the operation, not here."

"You don't know?"

Najibullah nodded his head, and then he shook it.

Whether he meant yes or no, Andrew was sure. "When will you know?"

"After she heal."

"And how long will that take?"

He shrugged. "Maybe one month we know better."

"A month?" Andrew was stunned.

"But hope for improvement one year." The doctor studied the chart. "You pregnant?"

"Yes."

"Constipated?"

That one took Bridget by surprise. "Ah … yes."

"Very common. You must have soft stool now. No forcing." He turned to Andrew. "You must get real food. No hospital trash."

"Don't eat the food?"

"No. Very bad. Very bad. It comes in box. White bread sandwich, crisps and cookies. Very hard stool. She go, she break stitches in eye." He took out a piece of paper and started writing. "Get berries and fruit like apple and plum, get beans, get dried fruit apricot. Brown bread with much fiber. Nuts like peanuts and walnuts but raw and no salt only. Get cherry juice." He drew a line. No meat. No milk or cheese. No snack food like chip and cookies. No fried food. No pizza or junk food."

He looked at the doctor in shock. Was he really now going to be making dinner for HER? But Dr. Najibullah started all over again, beating the air with his hand with every phrase. "Fruits. Beans, Very important. You must do this. Hospital not want poop. Too much trouble. They make food so you have rocks. Go. Cook."

He sighed, just not wanting to get into feeding her. "Alright," he said, walking out of the room and down the corridor, weighing his options. He could just ignore the doctor. He knew it wouldn't play well with Juliet though. He could get a cab, go to a market, buy food and bring it back. He discarded that option. The hotel room key that Siobhan had was absolutely burning a hole in his pocket. He could call Solomon and have him deliver food. That would take forever though, and he would probably have to pay for a whole day of chauffeur service for it. He then had another idea, checking his phone for a number he had on file in case he needed help with Juliet. He looked under his "Home" directory and found "Sheriden 620 Pk Av #9B."


	47. Pay Dirt

Pay Dirt

In the Sheridan apartment, Jeff packed his bag to go to the gym. He had everything for his Saturday pilgrimage to Church Street Boxing Gym. Greer didn't like his continuing to box, but she knew it was his time for himself and it kept his sanity. There were nights he was so frustrated at the office that she was glad he spent an hour on a speed bag rather than bringing that anger home.

She looked out the window of their apartment. A huge dark cloud looked to be rolling in. "The weather looks nasty, dear."

"I'll be fine. I'll take a cab, door to door Honey." He kissed her and walked out.

Greer's stress relief was in housework. She could find peace while patiently scrubbing a toilet. It allowed her to escape herself and her thoughts. Unfortunately all too often her inner calm was being interrupted by London.

London had a talent for killing the belts on Greer's last vacuum so Jeff had bought her the top of the line Dyson vacuum for her birthday. It was powerful, had no belt and was easy to clean. Greer had London empty the vacuum first. Unfortunately that was only the beginning of the problems. First London couldn't re-assemble it. The wand on the handle wouldn't lock down. Greer tried to fix it but London kept taking it away from her and trying to force it in.

"Did you look at the manual," Greer asked.

"No."

"Why didn't you?"

"I don't know. What manual?"

"It was in the drawer of other manuals." Greer went to the drawer and checked, but oddly this one wasn't there. So she went to the computer and printed a new one.

The manual was cryptic but within a few minutes she had the unit re-assembled. "See, no problem."

Greer went back to the toilets to the sound of vacuuming in the living room. But it did not last. When it went quiet and it stayed quiet, Greer went to investigate and found London sprawled on the couch. "Why did you stop?"

"It won't pick anything up."

"Did you clear it?" Greer remembered when vacuum cleaners were simpler affairs without the bending tubes that clogged of the new ones.

"No."

"Why didn't you clear it?"

"I don't know what to do."

Greer got a trash bag and with a bit of looking at it and following the manual she pulled it apart and cleared the snake like plumbing. "There. See. It's simple. Now get to vacuuming."

"You're always criticizing me," London said, as she retreated and slammed the door to her room.

It was moments like this that Greer wondered why she'd ever wanted children. She couldn't help thinking of how much London had cost them over the years and wondered what she and Jeff had ever gotten from it. She breathed in and out in calm, deep breaths. She would be calm and nurturing.

She knocked on London's door. There was no answer.

She knocked again. There still wasn't any answer.

Greer told herself that it was her responsibility as a mother to get London to develop herself by learning how to do the requirements of life and actually sit down and do her homework. Unfortunately it seemed London would go to any extreme to avoid work and responsibility.

Was she that bad when she was a teen-ager? She didn't think she was.

She knocked a third time. There still wasn't any answer.

When she opened the door, she found a lump lying on a bed piled high with junk. Her desk, make-up table and dresser were piled high with junk. The whole floor had so many clothes, blankets, suitcases, boxes and baskets on it that Greer could barely walk around. All those beautiful clothes just scattered on the floor like garbage. "Go away," said the lump.

"If your homework isn't done and your chores aren't done you aren't going to that party tomorrow night."

"Why don't you hire a maid? Daddy can afford it."

"It's not the point. The vacuum is fixed. Now go clean the living room."

"That's just so unfair."

Greer had read that the most spoiled children in America lived in the Upper East Side in New York. She believed it. "You won't be living here forever. When you go to college you will be doing your own chores and you will be doing your homework or you won't be in college."

"But that's then. And you can hire a maid then too."

"No we're not."

"Why not?"

The phone rang. London jumped back to life. "I'll get it." She sprang on a portable phone like a cat on a mouse. "Hello." She listened for a moment and grew more and more puzzled looking. "Mom, it's for you."

Greer took the phone. "Hello."

"Hello Greer," said the voice on the other end. "It's Andrew Martin and I need a favor."

No wonder London looked puzzled. "Andrew, of course. Sure, anything. How is Siobhan?"

"Go see her for yourself. She's in hospital."

Her eyes grew wide. "In the hospital?"

"Yes. Yes, she was taken late last night to Bellevue A & E."

"Bellevue?" Greer thought of what Bellevue was famous for, their psychiatric facility. Had Siobhan finally and completely lost it? Was that why she just disappeared from the planet after Andrew found out about the affair? Was she now in a padded cell wearing a gold lamé strait jacket? "What's wrong?"

"Yes. She was attacked last night where she was staying."

"Oh my. How badly was she hurt?"

"It could have been a lot worse. She gave better than she got. But her face got cut up in the attack. I'm about to get on the elevator. If I lose you I'll call right back."

Siobhan's whole life seemed to center around appearances and maintaining drop dead good looks. Now her face had been slashed so bad that she was hospitalized. Greer knew that would certainly change things. She had seen on TV about Henry Butler's murder and had to wonder if they were somehow related. "All right. Was it some random thing or will they come back?"

Andrew laughed a mean laugh. "They definitely won't be back."

"Did the police get them?"

"She got them." Greer thought she heard a distinct note of admiration in his voice. "Do you have a pen and paper?"

"Just a sec." She grabbed London's English composition notebook from the couch. She never used it anyway, just left it out for show. "Go ahead."

"She's registered under the name Bridget Kelly."

Bridget, that name was familiar. She'd heard Juliet shouting it at Siobhan when they argued on her balcony that night. "All right." This was all very puzzling.

"Room 1122 B."

"Bridget Kelly in Room 1122B. So what does she need?"

"She needs some food brought in."

"Are they starving her?"

"The doctor said the food there would make her constipated even worse and she would bust the stitches in her eyes. He went over this long list of stuff. I don't know. Maybe he was the one who was full of it. I don't know. Maybe it's the baby."

"She's pregnant?" This was interesting news.

"Yes. She is pregnant with my son." He sighed heavily.

"You two can work it out."

"Things in our relationship are very complicated right now. Would you be able to bring her some healthy food? The doctor gave a long list of do's and don'ts."

"I remember the list very well. I don't think I went once when I was pregnant with London. It was really bad."

"Thank you. I'll pay you back for everything. I just can't get out of what I need to do right now."

"No problem." She went through the fridge and began pulling out bags of baby carrots, apples and clementine oranges. "I'll put together a nice care package."

"Thank you ever so much."

"It's my pleasure."

With that, Andrew hung up and walked outside of the hospital lobby. The weather was foul outside but he managed to get a cab at the taxi stand. "St. Mark's hotel," he said as he climbed in. He was exhausted, almost nodding off. His eyes were watering. He had perhaps three hours sleep. He knew he had been micro-sleeping in the elevator but he had to get there before they cleaned out her room.

The St. Marks hotel was known as a place for people having affairs. It was strictly cash only.

Inside, he went up a large flight of steep wooden stairs to get to the front desk and then another long set of wooden stairs to get up to the rooms. Apparently they hadn't heard of elevators. Either that or clientele who wished to purchase anonymity were prepared to make some rather distinct sacrifices. Upstairs, he wound through the bright hallways with a curiously narrow strip of red carpet along the floor.

The room was tiny by American hotel room standards, perhaps eight by ten feet. It reminded him a bit of something he would see in a youth hostel in Europe. It smelled of cigarettes and oddly of fried chicken. The Third Avenue noise was quite pronounced even at this hour. He started searching, having no idea what he was looking for. Clothes, cosmetics, tooth brushes, that trash he just threw on the floor.

He found two locking cabinets. There were several keys on the keychain and one of them worked. This is where he struck pay dirt. Not only was there seven thousand dollars in cash but there was an envelope from a nearby Wells Fargo bank with their address neatly written on it. In the envelope were a banker's business card and a safe deposit box key. He also found a key for a U Store It place in Brooklyn along with a receipt and two sets of ID cards, one for Siobhan Martin and one for Rebecca Sheldrake.

He wanted to head to the U Store It place, but even more he needed to sleep, and he needed to do it now. He looked at the unmade bed that Siobhan had slept in just night before last and crawled in as his just due. After all, he owned the Martin family now, not her.


	48. Insanity and Delusions

Insanity and Delusions

She was visiting the old family house in Woodlawn. She was sent to mow the back yard. She saw giant poop on the ground. Something was tangled up around the tree, almost like a tight ball. It was as thick as a log, concrete grey with darker brown spots. She saw that it was covered in scales. It writhed and her heart dropped. An eye opened from a huge diamond shape head and a pink fork tongue flicked forth. She knew this thing could eat her whole. She knew it had started as a little baby boa and had grown but why had they kept such a dangerous monster?

She ran out front. The Gods had marked a spot on the ground. There would be an explosion there and they were going to do something about it. Their first problem was to figure out how it had happened. They had made models like some scientific investigation TV show and were showing how the rocks would fall down and around to produce the damage pattern. They pondered and pondered but they failed. A couple had gone to a bed to make out and the bed exploded and they were killed. The bed had been booby trapped to get someone else. Half the house had been ripped up. The land had been destroyed and scorched and was gone, just like in the models of the Gods.

She followed one of the Gods to a storage shed. The God explained that after the first explosion there would be a secondary explosion from the storage shed and they had to try to find it before it happened. A little girl with long, blonde hair and a pink button down dress followed them in. She was perhaps eight. She looked around, touching everything. She found a lawn mower and began playing with it. When she went to start it the Gods fled in terror and seconds later there was a huge explosion. The Gods couldn't or wouldn't save the child. Their priority was saving themselves.

With the explosion, Bridget woke up, startled, her heart pounding. She must have dozed off in the hospital. She still had the bandages over her eyes but she could feel that there was someone else in the room, someone close. After Siobhan, part of her mind remained on hyper-alert. "Hello," she said.

"It's me, Siobhan," said a familiar voice.

"Greer?"

"Hi. Andrew said to bring you some food."

"Thank you so much."

Greer put her bag of food down on the table by the bed. "I brought the assortment pack. Carrot, celery and broccoli. Dried fruits and whole wheat bread and cans of V-8. Fresh apples and raw walnuts and peanuts and two cans of garbanzos."

"Oh that sounds just wonderful. Thank you so much."

"My pleasure." She looked at the bandaged woman in the hospital bed. She looked rather crushed and a line of darker roots were starting to show on her hair. Her real shade seemed to have a reddish tint. "You're pregnant?"

She smiled. "Yes. About twelve weeks. It's Andrew's son."

"That's wonderful. You must be so happy."

She smiled. "I am. I don't think I've ever been happier in my life." She paused awkwardly, as if striving for normalcy. "How is London?"

"Still driving me nuts, still a lazy teen-ager. How is Juliet?"

"She's flying back from New Zealand."

"Oh, she's been in New Zealand. That's why I haven't seen her. Did she have fun?"

"Too much fun."

"So what were you doing?"

"I was working at a kosher deli and restaurant."

Greer's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. "You were working?"

"Why does everyone in the Upper East Side treat work like it's a dirty word?"

"No, I'm sorry. I worked to help Jeff through law school. I just was surprised to see Siobhan Martin work."

"I guess that would be surprising. She never could hold down a job."

That was oddly detached to Greer, like Siobhan was speaking about a third person. "So why are you registered as Bridget Kelly?"

"Because it's my name."

"You're going back to your maiden name?"

She shook her head. "Siobhan is dead."

"You're being reborn because you're changing your life now?"

"No Siobhan is dead on a slab in the morgue. I'm Bridget. Could I have some of those carrots? I haven't eaten since yesterday."

Greer was totally confused now. Did Siobhan belong in the mental ward after all? She opened the bag of baby carrots and handed it to her.

She began chomping on the carrots like a rabbit. "These really hit the spot. Some blood sugar. Thank you. I was absolutely starved."

"I'm glad to help."

Greer moved over the chair. Something told her this was going to get very interesting.

"May I please have the walnuts? They sound so good."

Greer handed the bag over.

She propped herself up on her pillows and ate. "Siobhan was my twin sister. Early in September, she stole a whole bunch of money from Martin Charles, faked her suicide and ran off I guess so she could be with Henry. I faked it as Siobhan."

Greer was sure Siobhan had lost her mind now. "How could you do that? Why would you do that?"

"How? Easy. We used to do it all the time as kids. Siobhan was ashamed of me so she never told him she had a sister and he just wasn't expecting someone who looked almost exactly like her to drop into her life. He was away for a month in Europe and when he came back he thought Siobhan looked like I'd lost too much weight and didn't look well but … that was it. Why? I was trying to stay one step ahead of being murdered."

This was an interesting story. "So why didn't you tell me?"

She shook her head. "I kind of was trying to stay hidden so I wouldn't get killed. The fewer people who knew I wasn't really Siobhan the better."

"Siobhan, you could trust me. I kept your secret when I saw you with Henry."

She made a sour face and then laughed, shaking her head. "Henry the turd. What Siobhan ever saw in that putz I'll never know."

Greer found all of this completely fascinating. She'd always wanted to meet a true Dissociative Identity Disorder case and there one was in the next apartment building. Siobhan definitely had the impulsivity and rapid changes in interpersonal relationships that might warrant a concurrent diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and from what she was saying it definitely sounded like she had multiple personalities. She would have to help Siobhan recover the memories of her past trauma that would lead directly to the cause of her disorder. It would be best to humor her to elicit information. "So your name is Bridget?"

"Uh huh," she said between carrots. "You said you had some bread?"

"Yes. Whole wheat pita bread with garlic hummus."

"Oh that sounds heavenly. And a V8 please to wash it down."

Greer gave it to her and she took a bite of the pita. "Oh this is SO good! Is it fresh from that recipe in the middle eastern cooking class we took?"

"Yes it is."

"That was one of the best classes." She took another bite and then opened the can and drank. "That lamb shish kebab was so good."

"It was." She eyed the woman on the bed. "So, do you remember when you made a pass at Jeff?"

"Oh God. She actually went after your Jeff? When?"

"That fourth of July party. You don't remember?"

She shook her head. "Of course not. I would never, ever even joke about making a pass about your husband. Please believe me. I wouldn't even joke about it. I'd ask you to forgive me but it wasn't me. I was in Wyoming until September. I don't even remember meeting you until Juliet's Christmas school break."

Greer was utterly fascinated by the intricate detail of Siobhan's delusions. She remained quite consistent with them though. "What were you doing in Wyoming?"

"Pole dancing."

Despite all her attempts to keep a straight face through this, Greer began to laugh uncontrollably. "Pole dancing?"

She nodded. "Nasty job. You can really hurt your knees."

"Interesting. I never thought of it as dangerous. You see all the celebrity endorsements."

"Oh yeah. Come down with your knees locked and you'll feel it."

This was utterly amazing. It almost sounded like she really had experience as a pole dancer. She couldn't be faking it deliberately, could she? What was it about being a pole dancer that made this personality come forward? Was it something to do with Siobhan's amorality? Was it being the temptress epitomized? "If you hated it why did you do it?"

"I was really messed up."

"Messed up? What do you mean?"

"The owner of the bar I danced at was a drug dealer and my supplier. I moved there to get a new start and go clean but the drinks were free and … I got hooked worse than I ever was."

This was an unexpected wrinkle. Siobhan had never seemed to be a heavy drinker. She seemed to have just enough to be able to use it as an excuse for how badly she'd behave. How did this delusion of massive substance abuse fit in? "Did you like have a lot of blackouts?"

She laughed, finishing the V8 can. "Oh yes. Sometimes I'd lose days. I'd remember taking the first couple of drinks and then it could be the next day. I think I lost four days once."

Greer knew she was on to something here. Which was the real personality? Had Andrew been worn out by being married to two different women in the same body? Or had the Bridget personality actually been able to be convincing enough as Siobhan that nobody knew? Neither Siobhan the lying bitch nor Bridget the drug addict sounded really pleasant. "So how long has it been since you used last?"

She rolled up her right sleeve and Greer stared in shock. There was a tattoo on Siobhan's arm. "Is that real?"

"Is what real?"

"The tattoo. It's not like just painted on, is it?"

She shook her head.

Greer looked at it closely. It had a circle with a diamond in it in almost a shimmering iridescent green and 03/12/2011 written above in fancy printing. "It almost like sparkles. What does it mean?"

"The Narcotics Anonymous symbol and my Narcotics Anonymous anniversary. The first day I was clean."

If that was real, Siobhan would have a very nasty surprise when she came back. "Did it hurt to get it?"

She shook her head. "It was kind of a buzzy feeling when she did it. And then it would like itch after. But they gave me some A & D ointment just like for diaper rash and it healed up just fine."

Greer touched it and it didn't feel like paint on her skin. It felt like the cartoon pit bull dog in Captain America outfit with boxing gloves on his back or the navy anchor on his shoulder, not like the painted on tattoo that London got once. Oh was she glad that thing finally washed off. Siobhan was going to love this! "So how did Siobhan die?"

"I think the cop said she committed suicide."

"Suicide? Are you sure?"

She shook her head. "No. We were in a death match last night."

"A death match?"

She nodded and pointed to the bandages. "It was Siobhan that did this. She came after me with a knife."

Now this was truly fascinating. All of these injuries must be self-inflicted. She'd never heard of one personality killing the other off this way. Maybe she could get a paper published out of this. "How did you get out alive?"

"I fought her off with a hammer."

Greer nodded. Freud believed that a knife was a symbol that referred to sexual tension or sexual confrontation. That sexual aggression certainly fit Siobhan. The hammer that "Bridget" had imagined fit perfectly. She knew that Freud had famously said in "The Interpretation of Dreams" that hammers were symbols of male genitals but she believed that was ridiculously old fashioned. It was the animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche. This was the symbol of someone dealing with old demons and inner struggles. No doubt it referred to the struggle between the two personalities. Even though brutal force was used, for Siobhan's sake she sincerely hoped that the end would be a productive improvement. Had this "Bridget" hammered down the last nail in the coffin of Siobhan's twisted ways? "Wow, that's incredible."

She shook her head. "I was so scared. I don't think I could have done it if I weren't pregnant."

"Why is that?"

"Because I was fighting for my baby's life. As messed up as my relationship with Siobhan was, I really don't think I could have fought her like otherwise."

"But you said she killed herself?"

She nodded. "That's what I remember. By the end … it was so crazy. I was hammering her. I stabbed her."

Greer smiled. Aha! Finally an inconsistency! "But you said you had a hammer and she had a knife."

She nodded, eating walnuts. "I had one too. I even used pepper spray on her. You would think that would have stopped her it didn't. But mostly I fought her with a really big, heavy hammer."

"Why would she come after you?"

She sighed. "It goes back YEARS. Siobhan at times was a wonderful sister and at times she was really, really messed up. But things went horrible when her son died and she blamed me."

"Her son? I didn't know she had a …"

She nodded. "She didn't tell people much. His name was Sean." She sighed and shrugged. "I didn't realize how infected her hatred had become."

Did Siobhan really have a son or was it a part of the delusion? That would be quite important. Why had Siobhan let her personality disappear and allow Bridget to come to the surface? Was it because of Andrew's discovery of Siobhan cheating on him with Henry? After all, if it wasn't her doing the cheating then Siobhan really hadn't done it. Did the Bridget personality step in to preserve Siobhan's twisted marriage? "Why would she kill herself?"

"She was wanted for murder."

"What?" Greer was stunned.

"She murdered Henry and she killed herself instead of being arrested."

Could this woman in front of her really have a murderer inside her? Could she have killed Henry? Was she involved in Gemma's kidnapping and murder? "How did she kill herself?"

"I can't remember. You'll have to ask Andrew."

"Ask Andrew?"

She nodded as she chewed another baby carrot. "He said he saw her in the morgue."

There was a knock at the door. A pleasant young man with dark, curly hair and a Jewish nose peeked in. "Hello, Bridget."

"Hi, Bernie. How are you?"

"Not bad. How are you?"

"I'm alive and the baby is healthy. That's what's most important. Bernie, this is my friend Greer. Bernie is the son of the owners of the deli where I was working."

"She makes good sandwiches." He took a couple of things out of a plastic bag. "Dad made some chicken soup for you. It's Jewish penicillin."

"Oh thank him for me, please. It smells wonderful."

"And Mom said you'd want this book."

She took it and felt it. She couldn't read it of course but she knew by its size and weight what it was. She hugged it and then put it on the table. "Thank her ever so much. And thank you for bringing it. And tell Sophie I'm sorry about the mess."

"Don't worry. Larry our insurance agent is taking care of it."

She nodded. "I am so relieved. Oh, Greer knew Siobhan, my crazy up sister. Greer wants to know how she committed suicide. Did you hear?"

Bernie smiled and pulled out his phone. "I can show her."


	49. Destinations

Destinations

A personal note – my good computer with all my story stuff on it had a hardware crash. I'm using a little old junk system. Then when I went to rebuild a post I had written I ended up throwing it away and writing a completely different scene. That's what caused the delay.

She was carrying a medical bag and was pretending to be a doctor. Everyone thought she was a doctor and they thought it was a medical bag. It was a suicide bomb with a hidden detonator. She was really an Afghan terrorist for Al Qaeda. Security even inspected the pills in her bag when she entered the White House but they didn't find anything. Then she switched bags with someone else and went to the White House bar to get a drink.

Unfortunately for her, the doctor whose bag she had switched also went to the bar. She saw him just a few feet away. She couldn't run out. The best she could do was turn away and cover her face as it exploded, ripping five people to shreds right in front of her.

Juliet stirred, still on the airplane. "We are approaching JFK now," the flight attendant said to her. "Please fasten your seatbelt and restore your seat to the upright position."

She looked out the window. It was still dark outside the plane. It was disgustingly early. She tried to think of the last time she'd gotten up at this hour. She had to go back to a 7th grade school trip to Disneyworld.

By the time the plane landed, she could see the rising glow of the sun in the East. It would be a new day, and it would be one not just in the USA but in New York. For the first time since New Zealand, she actually felt hungry.

It was her fault, she knew. She shouldn't have acted like an ass that night. If she had talked Dad into letting her stay at home then Bridget wouldn't have been slashed up by Siobhan. Thank heavens at least the baby was healthy.

They landed at Terminal 8. She found the scene to be surreal as she went down the moving sidewalk. The airport was full of empty seats and closed stores. A short woman was cleaning the waiting areas as a boom box blasted Spanish music. Nearby, a little man was pushing two giant mops. She took the elevator down to baggage claim. Then when the elevator opened and she walked up to the moving sidewalk it wasn't moving at all. Nobody else was on it so she took it as her own private highway to the other side as she walked underneath the runways. Then she took the elevator at the other end.

Welcome to New York said the sign by the exit doors, with a monstrously ugly giant cartoon apple by it. Ha, ha, she thought, so cute it made her sick. But there was one sight that she was so glad to see immediately past Security, and that was the McDonald's in the food court. She got a Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and a large mocha with nonfat milk. As good as the Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles looked, she didn't want to risk getting sick from it like she had from that Burger King cheeseburger.

Finally she reached baggage claim, and then wondered why she was bothering to stop there at all. She didn't like anything she had left in the bag. Still she waited as she ate and eventually her bag came.

It was a bit chilly and windy outside as she waited at the taxi stand but the day was turning bright and beautiful. When a cab driver pulled up for her and asked her where she wanted to go, she briefly debated but her answer came out "Bellevue Hospital."


	50. Feeding Time at the Zoo

Feeding Time at the Zoo

The mattress she woke on was covered in bright blue vinyl. It was hard and very uncomfortable. It was made by UNICOR prison industries. Her blanket, towel and two sheets were all UNICOR products. They didn't let her have a pillow.

The bunk itself was welded to the floor and to the wall. There were two half circle loops of metal about three inches across welded at each end of the bunk and two more loops welded at each side. She understood that two were to strap down your feet and two were to hold down your wrists but she couldn't figure out what the two at the top were for. Somehow she didn't want to find out.

Her cell consisted of four walls. Three of the walls and the floor were made of steel and one wall was bars. Every bit of it was painted orange. Her jump suit, her socks, her slippers and underwear were also the same shade of orange. She even knew what the shade was – Blaze Orange. It was that same hideous color as a traffic cone or a safety vest but there was nothing safe in these walls.

There was a long fluorescent light-box in the ceiling with two light tubes in it. It was still early morning so the fluorescent light was off but there was a light bulb on the ceiling that they kept on day and night. It made it very difficult for her to sleep.

Catherine had been told this is a "boxcar" cell. It was smaller than her walk in closet in her condo in Miami. She would be in this boxcar perhaps 150 hours out of 168 hours a week. It had two doors. The first door was made of bars like one expected a jail cell to have. Three feet beyond that was a second door. She felt it was like the inside of a gas chamber, monstrously thick and made of solid steel. She had wondered at times if Zyklon B would eventually pour out of the sink and toilet. The door had a food tray slot that the guards kept locked from the outside. There is also a small window in it that they were supposed to use every fifteen minutes to check on her welfare but they never did. She could see through it to the cell across from her. A new woman was across the way. She was some kind of foreigner. She spoke a little English but not often or very much.

She heard the clink of the electronic lock. Against her will, she had become trained to respond to that clink. Everything of interest in the whole cell block started with that clink. She knew what this one was, feeding time at the zoo. The guard opened the meal slot and tossed a white paper bag in and then slammed the door closed.

She knew exactly what the zoo meal contained. A bologna sandwich, some carrots and celery, a couple of processed cheese food sticks, an apple or an orange and if she was very lucky there might be a couple of fruit bars. It didn't sound that disgusting unless you smelled it. The bread often had green specks on it that she would have to pinch off and the bologna was gross. She had heard that prisoners were fed on three dollars a day. She believed it but she'd learned the hard way to not protest at the food.

She ate all of it she could stomach. She knew lunch and dinner would be no better.

The cell looked and smelled of rotting food and human feces, but she sat down on the floor anyway and dropped a crumb of her green bread on the ground. A horde of ants climbed out of a nearby crack and carried it away. She gave them another crumb and they took that too, and then another one after that.

She wasn't sure whether it was Sunday or Monday. Time had begun to blur all into one. If it was Monday she'd get out to the exercise yard. She'd tried exercising in her cell. Three steps forward and three steps back. That's all she could do. It didn't take her long until she gave up on exercising in the cell. It was supposed to be good for your nerves but she didn't care.

She crawled onto her bunk and read. She could only have four books a week so she got the biggest books she could so they would last.

The woman across the way began yelling and screaming. She watched as a guard went up and put a piece of cardboard over her window and just walked away. The guard caught her staring at him and slapped cardboard over her window too.

She decided to make the best of the situation and took a "bird bath" in the sink. This way at least she wouldn't have to worry about the male guards peeking at her.

She went back to reading a fat Stephen King book after that but she couldn't focus. It wasn't just the noise across the hall. She felt like her mind and sanity were being sucked out of her. She kept forgetting where she had just read or even what she had read. It had begun to be a little frightening at times. Little bits of waking dreams invaded her life. A car battery had been on the toilet for several minutes but it was gone now. It was their fault she knew. She would be fine if she weren't locked in such an insane place and if they'd let her have her psych meds. She'd screamed and begged and pleaded to keep her psych med when they took them away. She saw how insanely they had all acted and what her hopeless attempt had cost her.

How had she, Catherine Alice Roth Martin, come to this?

There was another click of the lock. Like one of Pavlov's dogs, her ears perked up. Was it lunch? No, she could tell by the quick way they walked through that it was the psychologist who had come to look at the woman across the hall. He barely stopped and said only a few words to her before leaving.

They kept her alive but in conditions that would drive any normal human being completely insane. The whole place was the exact opposite of a mental hospital. Here they deliberately drove mentally healthy people into insanity.

She was literally being treated like an animal. Every time she left her cage they tied a pillow case over her head like a raptor bird and put a leash on her. They had another word for it but it was a set of hand cuffs with a leash on them that they led her by. She could feel herself becoming more and more like a mouse in a cage. She was utterly dependent upon the guards for her food, for her exercise time in the yard, for everything. She would starve to death if they didn't feed her and that made her depressed.

She tried to go back to her reading but unfortunately her neighbor across the way had added banging her cell bars to her screaming. She was growing used to screams, shouts, banging and cursing at all hours of the day and night.

She watched as a guard opened the cardboard over her neighbor's window and received a massive pelting of poop. Exactly like an angry chimp at a zoo, the woman had struck back at her keepers with what she had available. What caged ape wouldn't?

Unfortunately Catherine's keepers weren't humane zoo keepers who cared about their trusts. She knew what she had gotten when she called them what they were, which was a bunch of perverted Nazis, and had fought them when one had groped her as she was being herded to the showers. She waited watched and soon it came. Half a dozen of the guards in SS Deaths Head black tactical uniforms with full body armor stormed her cell and tasered her into unconsciousness. Then they ripped her clothes off and dragged her off into the isolation cell.

Catherine had learned the hard way that there was a Hell that was even worse than Solitary. Three days of complete and utter confinement in a freezing cold and pitch black cell, stark naked without a sheet or a blanket or a mattress, pummeled night and day by the distorted guitar blasts, explosive drumming and growling, shrieking vocals of the grindcore heavy metal group Napalm Death's hit album, Scum. Except for meals flung in at feeding time there wouldn't be another sign of a human being was still on the planet.

After three days of torture, she would be returned to her cell where she would be told that her actions had shown that she was not safe to return to the general prison population and would have to be kept in solitary. Catherine said she would appeal but was told that there would be up to 90 days until her case would even be heard.

It was hopeless. The prison held all the cards and she knew it. One guard had told her as she was hauled into the isolation cell that he wondered if she'd ever get out of Solitary. Was he right? She sincerely wondered and then began to cry.

There was another click of the lock. She turned to the door, salivating just a little. Another white sack was tossed into her cage. She took it and ate the sandwich, tossing the greenish bits to her ants one by one, watching them take the crumbs away before giving them another one. She understood now why she fed her ants. They were the last living things on Earth that cared whether she was dead or alive.


	51. Remembrances

Remembrances

Andrew had woken early. No, that wasn't quite accurate. He had grown sick of staring at the big red numbers on the alarm clock all night long. It had been a night of being alone inside his head, and he didn't enjoy what he saw there.

He felt numb and overwhelmed. He didn't understand what had gotten into him. It made no sense. He thought he was utterly and completely over Siobhan. He had filed for divorce, admittedly with more than a little help from Tim Arbogast's manipulations. He had punched her lover in the nose. He had taken pictures of her corpse for Tim and he had slept in her bed. He had even planned to urinate on her grave. So why was he crying?

He looked at their wedding pictures as he wept. He had been so hopeful then and she looked so beautiful. They should have had a lifetime of happiness together. Now she lay on a slab in the morgue, dead at her own hand.

He tried to comprehend what had happened to him but none of it made sense to him. None of it even seemed real.

He went to her clothes closet just to find her distinctive odor, almost a salty malt vinegar smell, and found comfort in that blue and black plaid Pendleton wool snap shirt that she always liked so much, just to find that smell.

He told himself that he didn't deny her death. He knew it had happened. She was never going to go into this closet again. It wasn't that she had gone to the Hamptons for a while and would be back. She wasn't coming back. He knew it and yet he couldn't force his mind to wrap around it.

He made himself get himself up but he took the shirt with for comfort. He paced around the apartment but everywhere he looked he saw her in the decorations in the living room, in every detail in the bathrooms, in how everything was arranged in the kitchen, even in the drapes and carpet.

He couldn't deny what had happened. All he had to do was look at the gruesome pictures on his phone for proof. But how could any of this have happened? His mind raced over and over around questions that he had thought no longer bothered him. Why had she left him, and left him in such a bizarre way? What could Henry possibly have had that he didn't?

Henry – it must be his fault. He must have seduced her away from him. No doubt put her up to stealing. He had leeched off of Gemma for years. When Gemma started to look worn and began to become wise to him he wanted to move onto greener pastures. It must have been his idea to kidnap and then murder Gemma. That way he could collect the insurance money that way. That was why Siobhan finally killed him. She must have finally seen through him just as Gemma had begun to.

He went to the kitchen. He knew he should be hungry. He hadn't eaten dinner. Yet he couldn't force himself to eat breakfast either.

It wasn't fair. He hadn't done anything to deserve it. It was utterly unfair. He had tried so hard to have a happy family. What had he done so wrong to have failed so miserably not just once but twice?

In one month, the entire foundation of his world had been shattered. Nothing he believed had actually been true.

Was it him? Catherine had seemed normal and happy before he married her and so had Siobhan. Was there something about him that had driven the both of them insane? Was the sickness within him? Had he pushed them both over the edge? Or had he just been such an absentee husband that he had been oblivious to the warning signs in both of them? The years kept spinning around and around in his head. He kept wondering what he had done that so catastrophically failed them both.

He thought back to the Christmas that Juliet gave her the shirt. They had been so happy then. They had their problems and their anger and their frustrations, but they had good times together as well. At least he thought they had. Was any of it real? Had Siobhan ever cared for him?

Then he remembered that Juliet gave her the shirt just last Christmas.


	52. It Hurts

It Hurts

"Are you awake," said the nurse.

No answer.

"Are you awake?"

A faint growl came from the sleeping form as it turned away.

"We need to remove your bandages."

"Now?"

"The doctor said to remove the bandages after 24 hours. It's time."

There was no point in fighting it. Hospitals were no place to go to get rest. It seemed that every time she dozed off she was poked or prodded or had a blood test or something so that she was awake again. She rolled onto her back in resignation. The sooner she got it over the sooner she'd get a chance to go back to sleep.

She could hear the sound of little scissors cutting and felt fingers on her face. "I have the lights down low," the nurse said. "We need to give your eyes time to adjust." Finally, all the bandages felt like they were off and the nurse put smaller ones on, just over the wounds on her face. "There. Open your eyes slowly and tell me what you see."

It felt like there were big cakes of goo in her eyes. She looked around. She wasn't blind. She held her hand up at arm's length. It was blurry and somehow it looked distorted. She brought her fingers closer, expecting it to get clearer. It improved as she brought her fingers closer but not that much. By the time she could clearly see her hand she could almost touch her face by curling her fingers over. But the worst part was the pain. "It's so hazy and it hurts. It feels like something is in my eyes." She closed them again. They hurt less closed. "It hurts when I look around, like a really bad headache in my left eye."

"But how well do you see? Let me turn the light up a bit."

She opened her eyes again. The light made them hurt worse. Her eyes kept blinking almost uncontrollably. "My left eye really hurts." She looked at her hand and then at the ceiling and the curtains around her. "There is like a big dark cloud in the middle. Is it going to stay like this?"

"I am sure it will get better. Try to stay calm. How is the other eye?"

She closed her left eye and moved her hand back and forth. It was distorted and blurry but if she held her and just right she could almost see the fingerprints on her hand. "The right isn't so bad."

"That's good. Just relax and if you need to keep your left eye closed and rest it until the doctor comes." She raised the head of the bed up, almost to sitting. "Leave the bed up like this."

"What's wrong?"

"The doctor will have to diagnose that."

"Could you tell me … where is the chapel?"

"The chapel?"

"I haven't had confession since last Saturday. I would really like it."

"I'll tell the duty nurse to get the priest for you."

"Really, I am sure I can walk it."

She started to sit up to get out of bed but the nurse put her hand on Bridget's chest. "No," the nurse said with surprising forcefulness. "You just relax there. We'll get a chaplain to come to you."

"I don't want to put anyone through extra trouble."

"It's no trouble. You just stay there."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," the nurse babbled. "It's just that the doctor has to clear you before you get out of bed."

That didn't feel true but she wasn't going to argue. The nurse dimmed her lights. Bridget didn't argue with that either. She lay there and her fingers found the carrot sticks that Greer had brought yesterday.

She had to accept the world the way it was, she told herself. For good or for evil, life was the way it was. "Don't put a question mark where God has put a period," she had heard in meetings. She said that immortal prayer to herself over and over. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

She was alone in the universe now, at least alone of living relatives. Both of her parents were dead and now her sister was dead. She had two nieces but who knew if they were dead or alive. Siobhan wouldn't be telling where she had left them. That much was sure. She patted her stomach. The only living relative she knew of was inside her. Thank God he was safe at least.

That horrible fight with Siobhan came flooding back. She felt so sickened by it. She had almost killed her own sister. She would have killed her if Siobhan hadn't fled. She didn't want to hurt Siobhan, ever. They had fought as children, yet despite everything they had made up and gone on, even when Siobhan burned Goldie's paws off with Mom's cigarette lighter or burned down the church.

There had always been a reason. Goldie kept her up at night spinning on the wheel in her cage. She said Father Keller had taken her on his lap, reached under her blouse and fondled her breasts under her bra and pushed his penis into her buttocks through her dress as grandmother lay in bed dying of cancer. Maybe it really was true. Nodding off on morphine, Grandmother certainly was in no shape to be a reliable witness and she'd never say a word against the Church anyway. Maybe Siobhan actually had complained and given a deposition to the Diocese. Bridget understood all too well Siobhan's reasons for wanting to vengeance upon her. The reason was even in the Bible. A life for a life.

She had to turn away from the bad, away from the horrors of her childhood, away from that lost decade. She had to look to the good things in her life. She made the sign of the cross and began to say a chaplet of the rosary on her fingers. As she went through the ten Hail Mary's of first decade of the rosary she tried to focus on the Sunday Glorious mystery of the resurrection and to have faith in the resurrection where Jesus had been raised from the tomb. She was alive. Her baby was alive. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

As she prayed the mysteries of the second decade of ten Hail Mary's she turned her mind to hope. She had been raised as if by a miracle from the death of her addictions to a new life where she didn't have to use. As long as she kept hope and as long as she kept working her program, one day at a time, she too could keep clean. That was a glorious mystery.

There was a sound. Someone else had walked in the room. She could feel it. It didn't sound like a nurse. Maybe it was the priest. She so needed to give her confession. "Hello?"

"Bridget?"

She knew the voice anywhere. "Juliet!"

Her curtains parted. Bridget looked up at her and smiled and saw Juliet gasp in horror and turn away. She felt her face. She knew it was bandaged up but was it so horrible? "Do I look that bad?"

"Your eye," Juliet said. "I'm sorry. It startled me. It's black."

"I have a black eye?" She shrugged. It was a bad fight.

"The eye is black. Like a monster in a movie. What is it?"

No wonder her vision was all clouded over. "They … didn't tell me anything." She closed her eyes and lay back down.

Juliet dropped her bag and just stood there, her head shaking. She didn't know what to do or to say. Everything seemed to be wrong. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. You didn't do this."

But Juliet knew somehow that she had. She knew she should have been able to prevent it.

A nurse from the floor came on in. "Regular visiting hours don't start until 10:00."

"Please let her stay," Bridget said. "I really need her."

Bridget heard someone else came in the room, a woman in heels. "Bridget, its Dr. Chen. Let me look at those eyes."

Dr. Chen opened Bridget's right eye wide with her fingers and shined a light in. "Do you have a history of sickle cell anemia?"

"No." That was an odd question. She wasn't even black Irish. Then Dr. Chen opened the other eye and shined a light in and Bridget almost jumped. "Yow!"

"Did that hurt?"

"YES!"

She let go of Bridget's eye and turned off the light. "You have what is called hyphema. It's a bad bruise inside your eye. Your right eye looks to be healing normally. If both looked as good as your right eye we'd discharge you but it isn't. Your eye is … the best thing to do is to inject your eye with a medicine called urokinase. There is a tiny risk of infection because it's derived from human donations so but it is screened it very carefully so the risk is extremely low. If my eye was that damaged and I was pregnant I would definitely do it. Your baby needs a mother that can see with both eyes."

"What's the alternative?"

She shrugged. "You go blind in your left eye." She let that idea sink in for a moment. "We need to do this and we need to do it now. There are some other procedures but they aren't nearly as effective. We can try to suck it out using a procedure called paracentesis. We can try to combine paracentesis with washing it out with saline but that is even riskier."

Bridget said a silent prayer and then said what feels right. As shaky and as frightened as she felt there was something inside her that gave her the answer. "Let's do it."

"Good. Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"No. Just a couple of carrot sticks."

"No other fluid? Nothing else since dinner last night?"

Bridget shook her head.

"I'll chance that."

An odd thought suddenly struck Bridget. "What time is it?"

"It's almost 7:00 AM."

She turned to Juliet and peered at her through one eye. "How did you get here so early?"

"I came right from the airport."

You haven't even been home yet?

Juliet didn't answer. The silence spoke volumes.

"Does Andrew know you're here?"

She began to look angry and stared at her feet as she shuffled around nervously but didn't say a word.

"Go tell him you're here."

"He doesn't care."

"He does care. He's your father. Talk to him. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You don't want me here."

"I do, Sweetie. More than you could ever know. But you have to be responsible and think of your father.

"Why? He doesn't think of me."

"Please, you must respect and love your father, even when it's hard and you don't think he deserves it."

Juliet wrinkled her nose. "Why?"

She took Juliet's hand and squeezed it. "Because I love him and it hurts me when you don't."


	53. Winning at the Olympics

**Winning at the Olympics**

After the orderlies came and transferred Bridget to a gurney, Juliet crawled into Bridget's bed in her hospital room and phoned home. It was by then about 7:30 in the morning.

If it were anyone else, she would just text. But as old as he was, she knew he would actually want to speak with her. So she dialed his phone and waited, hoping he hadn't decided to sleep in.

"Hello Juliet," came the answer. He sounded distant to her, almost faint.

"Hi, Dad. Is everything alright?"

"It's just that I'm tired. Really, I'm fine. Are you alright? I thought you'd be home by now."

"I stopped by the hospital. They're taking her off for another operation. One eye looked like a monster'."

"That bad?"

"Oh yeah. No kidding. All red and black. It was gross. I'd swear it was fake if the doctor didn't all freak out and stuff."

"Where are you now?

"In her hospital bed. They just wheeled her off." She paused. Something did sound wrong. "I can come home now if you would like."

"No, no. I'll be stopping by this afternoon. We can go home then."

"I'll see you then. Call me if you need anything Dad."

"You too. Bye."

For Andrew, her staying at the hospital was actually something of a relief. He had managed to briefly doze but was already awake again by the time she called. He needed time to pull himself together. He should be tough, a man like his father. He should know how to keep his chin up and lie his way through it like any good Martin. But as he sat in the dark on the edge of the bed they had slept in together he couldn't even make sense of what had happened.

He hadn't expected her to kill herself. Catherine had tried before. He could have seen Catherine kill herself. Siobhan hadn't even talked about suicide. But then she hadn't talked about her affair with Henry and stealing he didn't know how much money.

What would he say at the office? How would he explain it to anyone? He could see Claudine recoiling in horror. Everyone would know what a failure he was as a husband.

He felt like such a failure. He had ruined both Catherine and Siobhan. Was he going to ruin Juliet next? He was quite sure it was his fault but he couldn't figure out what had he done to cause such horrible damage to them.

Even Juliet didn't want to see him. She went to a hospital instead of coming home. Perhaps she would be safest if she kept her distance from his toxicity.

As Andrew sat in the dark, Juliet lay on Bridget's bed dozing until her phone beeped to the tune of "Born This Way." She pulled open the message from London. "Need help w/ Lit paper 4 crucible."

She could do that. They had studied Henry Miller's The Crucible back in boarding school. She felt like she had known the play's antagonist, Abigail Williams, quite personally. She stretched out on Bridget's bed and logged her notebook into the hospital Wi Fi network, catching up with London and enjoying actually knowing more than someone else for once until Bridget was wheeled back.

She had a black patch over both eyes.

"What happened," Juliet asked, quickly logging off and clearing her computer and herself off the bed. "Is she alright?"

One of the men who wheeled her in shrugged as they transferred her to her bed. "I dunno. We're just the orderlies. They don't tell us nothing."

"It wasn't fun," Bridget said with a slurred, hoarse voice.

Juliet just sat there next to Bridget on the bed and held her hand, not knowing what to say or do. She felt so powerless. Then something stirred within her, something she had been meaning to say for a while. It didn't seem like the right moment but then with the Mad Martins nothing ever was the right time. The stirring boiled and boiled until it forced Juliet's lips to let it out. "Do you remember when I said I didn't know what to call you?"

A nod came from the form on the bed. "Uh huh."

"I know now."

"What, Sweetie?"

"Mom."

Bridget squeezed her hand. "That is so wonderful. But Catherine?"

"She died the day she pulled a gun on Dad."

Bridget thought slowly. "I love you girl. I want you as my daughter so much. But some day you're still going to have to deal with those feelings you have about Catherine."

Juliet shook her head. "She died."

"Death doesn't end a relationship. It still lives on in the mind of the survivor." Bridget had heard it first in an old movie but learned the hard way how true it was.

"I don't want anything to do with her."

"I understand. You're a woman. You're almost sixteen now. You should make your own choices for who you want and don't want in your life. But one day you will need to deal with the sea of resentments you have about Catherine. You might be able to put it off for a while but it will just be like hiding an infection by putting a bandage over it."

Just outside the door, Andrew listened to the two of them. It was dangerous how much these two were bonding. If anything they seemed to be getting along better now than before the grand unveiling. Could she really mean it about calling Bridget her mum? At least Catherine was out of Juliet's mental picture and despite what Bridget said he would work to keep her there.

He didn't want to be there. He had to force himself to pull himself together to go. Inside he just wanted to crawl into a little, dark hole and stay there. But he had to put on a normal face for tomorrow at the office.

He finally knocked on the door. "Hi."

"Andrew," Bridget said, smiling. "How are you?"

"Alright," he lied, smiling by habit and then letting it go when he realized it wasn't needed. "What does the doctor say?"

Juliet smirked. "What doctor?"

Andrew sighed then reminded himself that this was the New York City charity hospital and he basically was dealing with NHS rejects. He pulled up the chair and sat. He considered asking Juliet to step out of the room but decided it wouldn't be worth it. "Bridget, we have a matter of mutual business to discuss."

If eyes could go wide with surprise under blinders, hers did. "What?"

"Siobhan's funeral."

Bridget nodded. "What were your feelings? Did you two have any sort of arrangements?"

Juliet scowled and then pantomimed the "finger down throat" throwing up gesture. Andrew found it crude and offensive but at least she did it silently. He wasn't sure what he wanted with his relationship with Bridget but he could ill afford to make it a bad one.

"She said she wanted us both to be entombed together in a mausoleum, like Romeo and Juliet, forever as the two immortal lovers." He paused. "Under the circumstances I consider any commitment to such as null and void."

Juliet wound her finger around her ear in that "loose screws crazy" gesture to which Andrew smiled and nodded in return, putting his finger to his lips for her to remain silent.

"So what do you want," Bridget asked.

"I'd like to hear your input."

The thought had crossed Bridget's mind as she lay there in her private darkness. "She should be buried by Sean, in Oklahoma."

Juliet smiled and gave the choice thumbs up. She didn't want him mourning over her grave or avoiding part of town in shame. The further away she was from their lives, the better and what could be further away from New York City than Oklahoma?

"What about the service?"

"Henry Butler, Tyler Barrett and Charlie Young can lead her service."

Juliet nodded in agreement. Their tribute to her would only be too fitting.

Andrew grew angry for a moment but knew the truth of it. Each of them had slept with Siobhan after his last time with her and she had killed or been directly involved with the death of them all. Did he have as much claim to her as any of them? Did he want to be her victim or did he want to vanquish her to an armpit of the Americas? He could only have one answer. "Yes. That does seem reasonable."

Bridget shrugged. "Unfortunately I'm not quite up to making the arrangements."

Andrew nodded. "I'll take care of it." Actually, he would have Claudine take care of it.

A black woman in clothes that screamed "Thrift store markdown rack" knocked and stepped in. She looked at Andrew and Juliet in confusion. "Excuse me, but they said go here for Bridget Kelly," she said in a raspy voice.

"Hi, Lateesha," came from the bed.

She stepped in, looking Bridget up and down. "Girl, what did they do to you?"

"It was quite a fight. Oh Andrew and Juliet, this is Lateesha, my sponsor. Andrew is …"

Andrew finished her sentence. "A good friend and this is my daughter, Julia."

Lateesha nodded, understanding. She knew just how friendly Bridget and Andrew had been.

A nurse stormed in. "I am sorry but only two visitors are allowed per patient."

"We'll be leaving in just a moment," Andrew said. "Juliet, why don't you wait right outside and make the nurse happy?"

"Yes, Dad," Juliet said, glowering pointedly at him, getting up from the bed. Why was she always the one who was marginalized? What did he understand or care? But she would be the little peacemaker like she was with Catherine and Andrew and go outside in the hallway and wait.

Bridget squeezed her hand. "Come back soon, Sweetie."

When Juliet walked out, the nurse followed.

"Lateesha," Andrew said. "I was wondering if you could do Bridget a favor."

"What is it?"

"She's been prescribed a special diet and she's not getting it." He pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet and slipped it to her. "I was wondering if you would be so kind as to get her restocked."

She looked at the money and at the smooth hands that held it and then finally took it. "I can handle it."

"Great." He grabbed Juliet's bags and walked out, staying two paces in front of Juliet as if he was blazing the trail.

Juliet wondered whether there was any point in telling him just how insulting his attitude was. As they reached the elevator she decided it wasn't even worth the bother of trying. He would just get angry. She could see exactly what he was doing wrong, exactly where he had gone wrong so many times before. She was the one who would have to save him from himself, but how?

As they descended down the many floors and waited then waited at the taxi stand in front of the hospital, she wondered if she should ask to see the body. Then she wondered why she should bother. Besides, it had to make him even angrier somehow.

As they took the cab back to the apartment they made some trivial polite chatter about dinner and how pretty the weather was but they didn't really say anything to each other. By the time they reached the apartment they had even run out of safe small talk.

Andrew just sat silently in a chair, staring at something a thousand yards beyond the wall he was facing. Juliet was sure he was mad at her but didn't know what it was yet. She guessed that it was for going to the hospital instead of coming home and waiting on him instead. She went to the kitchen and found yoghurt and a breakfast bar for lunch. She wondered who would possibly have left them there. They certainly weren't the scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, toast with butter and black pudding or herring that he liked for breakfast. What else had he been doing and who had he been doing it with while she was gone?

After lunch, she found him still seated in the chair, unmoved. She would try waiting on him to placate him. "Would you like anything, Dad?"

He shook his head. "No."

He must really be angry. She wasn't sure what was going on with him but she wasn't sure she wanted to find out right now.

Juliet went in her bedroom and put her surviving clothes away. She checked in to Facebook. She had been out of touch with the whole world for almost a day. Of course she wasn't surprised when she saw London on and London asked her if she could help her with The Crucible now.

When she went to check with Andrew, he at least had some papers in his lap. That meant he was working, his normal state. "Dad, London needs some help with her English homework and I did The Crucible already. Is it alright if I …"

"How long will you be?"

"I … I don't know. She said she was stuck with a bunch of homework. I know I can help. Her parents are there."

"Very well. Just there and back. Call me if you have any problems."

"Thanks!" It would feel good to get around someone who didn't hate her even if it was just for a little while.

She packed her books and her computer and walked to 630 Park Avenue and to London's apartment.

In her room, London typed almost every word Juliet said to her about The Crucible and quickly strung it all together to make something that almost looked like an essay. Once she had the required page count and she had all the pieces, she spell and grammar checked it and printed it. "How is it," she said as she handed it to Juliet.

Juliet read it. "This is maybe a C. Give me a pen and let's sit down and revise it."

"But then I'll miss the party."

"Party?"

"Melissa has a party tonight."

"Anorexia Melissa, with the braces? We'll have a lot more fun improving your paper than going to her party."

"Trust me," she said, smiling with a knowing wink. "This will be fun."

Greer just sadly shook her head when she read the paper after London went out and showed it to her. "Turning this in is a mistake. You need to pull your grades up to go to college."

"Yes," Jeff said, reading the pages that Greer was finished with. "But it minimally meets our conditions. Better this than an F."

"But she can do so much better."

"You're right. But I don't want to discourage her from meeting our conditions next time."

"But look at this!"

Jeff shrugged. "It's our fault for not writing the contract better. Next time we will be more specific about what it takes to reach completion. But this time she has fulfilled the contract and we must give her the payment."

London went and hugged her dad. "Oh thank you, Daddy!"

Jeff hugged her back, his big paw almost covering her back. "Be home by 10:00. Tomorrow is a school day."

"I will."

"And take your phone in case of trouble."

"I will."

"Are you going too, Juliet," Greer asked.

Juliet shook her head. "I just flew in this morning. I'm going to watch Game of Thrones and go to bed."

Computer bag over her shoulder, Juliet and London went downstairs together. She had expected to be walking with London as far as her building as it was on the way to where Melissa lived but instead London started tugging at her to go on the other direction. "Wait," Juliet said. "Melissa lives in the Mayfair."

"But we're going to the Drake!"

"You lied."

"I said I want to go to a party and that Melissa is having a party. I just didn't tell them it was Joey Waluski's party that I want to go to."

"That's not really honest, is it?"

"I'm a lawyer's daughter. What can I say?"

"You can go if you want but I don't know."

"Oh come on. Don't be a party pooper. After helping me out you at least have to see it."

She thought for a moment. It wasn't as if Andrew actually wanted her there at home. Really he was hiding from her, burying himself under his work. He'd never know, or care. Besides, Joey was a hottie. "Maybe just for a little bit."

The Drake was two blocks uptown and Joey's apartment was alive with music. Juliet looked around and no parents were to be seen. It looked like they had been gone for days. Pizza boxes and bottles festooned the living room and "Where Have You Been" by Rihanna was booming as her former class mates danced and snogged and shuffled off to the back bedrooms. She felt nervous, thinking about the last party she had been at but she'd just have a soda.

London pulled a small bottle of Honest Iced Tea out of her purse. "I bring offerings."

Joey sniffed it. "What is it?"

"A little bit of everything they had. That way they'll never miss it."

With a flourish he poured the contents into an office sized waste container. Bridget knew what went into that kind of punch bowl. Beer, wine, vodka, gin, whiskey, vermouth, rum, anything and everything with a bang. The only thing she could be sure of was that somebody would pour in a jumbo sized plastic bottle of 190 proof Everclear and some frozen pineapple and lemon juice to cover it all up.

"So where have you been, girl," asked Emily from her biology class. She had a half drunk paper cup of the mix in her hand obviously she was trying to look as drunk as possible. "You just disappeared off the planet like two weeks ago."

"There was a family emergency in New Zealand. I just flew back this morning."

"Oh, wow. Like did someone die?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I am sorry," Emily said and drifted on and found someone to dance with.

Joey poured her a paper cup of the mix. "Have a drink with me to celebrate your return, Juliet."

Juliet shook her head. "I don't do trashcan punch."

"You must look beyond the trash can. This is the finest Wapatoolie ever mixed."

"Wapatoolie, trashcan punch, Jesus Juice, whatever you call it, I don't do junk like that." She thought of the last time she did imbibe. That was back in Florida. It was worse than Purell. She ended up puking up her stomach lining. She vowed always to know what she was drinking after that. "I'll take a can of diet Pepsi."

"Ooh, Virgin lips. Never had a drink before."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I've drunk before. I just only do good stuff."

"Ooh, we have a sophisticated purist here. Do you drink your whiskey neat, straight up, with a splash of soda or on the rocks?"

"Neat."

"Neat, oh yes, very neatly and primly of course." He reached into a cabinet and pulled out an unopened bottle of her heart's desires, Wasmund's Copper Fox Rye Whisky. She didn't even want to look at it, but there it was.

"What's the matter? Never seen a bottle of whiskey before?"

"Oh I have seen it before." Catherine had it for her guests. She would just slop down Jim Beam when she was by herself, but Juliet knew and appreciated the difference.

"Are you a big enough girl to have a little drink?"

"Of course I am. I've spilled more than you've ever drunk."

"Prove it."

"How do I know you've ever had a drink, fuzzy cheeks?"

He rubbed his whispy beard. "Oh I'll prove it."

Dad wouldn't notice one drink, and it was just whiskey, not anything that would give her a problem like rum. He pulled out two shot glasses and poured each of them one and drank one down. "You next."

When Joey had his, she gulped down hers. She loved the taste and even more than that she loved the explosion inside her as it went down. She felt strong and relaxed and pretty and funny when she drank.

"Fight," London said, "Fight, fight" as she lined up two rows of ten shot glasses on the coffee table and emptied the rye bottle between them. London flopped on the couch as the other girls piled it all around her. Joey and the other boys pulled over kitchen chairs and the boys gathered around him. "Fight, fight," was the cry. She couldn't back down from a challenge and this was one battle Juliet knew she could win. She picked up a glass and looked Joey straight in the eye. He picked his up with visible trepidation. Juliet threw her glass back, smiled and turned it mouth down. Then it was Joey's turn, and he got it down but his eyes began to glaze and roll just a little. "Give up, Juliet?"

Juliet had just begun to fight. She picked up another glass and calmly downed it. "Wasmund's Copper Fox has always been one of my favorite ryes, with a raisin toast bouquet and a full bodied chocolate almond palette and a peppery finish. Not overly sweet like bourbon or as insipid as the lesser ryes my mother kept."

She began to feel a touch shaky but this was FUN! She would show him. He didn't have a chance.

Joey managed to get his down but he looked a little ill. His voice became slower and more relaxed. "Had enough?

Carefully, Juliet picked up her glass and gulped it, slamming it down in an invitation for him to do the same. She could feel the flush and the whiskey go to her head now, but she was not going to let it show. Right now, more than anything she wanted to drink Joey under the table.

Joey took another drink and managed to down it. He looked increasingly unsteady, like the walls were trying to make him slump over in his chair in their direction and none of the walls could manage to win. "Can you match that?" His speech was beginning to slur.

She took the next glass and downed it, turning it over. If anything, it was getting easier. The whiskey was losing its taste.

Joey looked at her with fear. She could take him, but he knew he couldn't live it down if he gave up to her. "Chicken," London and the other girls called as they flapped their arms like wings and clucked. He managed to get his down even though he looked distinctly shaky as he sprawled sideways in his chair.

She slammed down the next one and felt absolutely wonderful. All the girls cheered and patted her on the back.

"Go, Joey," called the boys. "Go, Joey." He looked at Juliet with unbridled anger as if she was showing him up at his own game. With visible shaking he took the next glass and choked it down with a burp.

Juliet neatly picked up her glass and downed it like a lady, just like her mother. Like her mother. Why couldn't Catherine handle her liquor like she could? Why couldn't she know when to stop? The rage flushed through her. She wanted to belt Joey. She wanted to close those puffy blue eyes of his with her fists. But she would show him. She would show them all and she wouldn't do anything like Catherine would even if he richly deserved it.

The girls exploded in adulation, hugging her and rubbing her on the back. Juliet felt like she was winning the Olympics. It was wonderful. What could possibly ever be bad with feeling like this? She was a success.

Joey slurped down his next glass, spilling more than a little down his chin. The girls booed him. "Can't take it," London called. "Ready to give up."

The boys called back. "Let's see if she can do that well now." But it was no problem for Juliet. She was quite practiced in the art of not appearing like she had been drinking. Slowly and carefully she picked up the glass and downed it in one gulp, then neatly slammed it down.

"No cheating this time," called the girls.

Joey took a straw and slurped down his glass. Juliet didn't need a straw to down her glass.

How many had she downed? She had no idea. She tried to count the empties but the number of glasses kept changing. She thought it was eight but she wasn't sure.

Joey tried to sip up the next glass but coughed half way through and spilled it on the table. "No cheating. Slurp it up," London called. He tried to drink the rest with his straw off the coffee table but kept missing the globs of whiskey. All the girls were laughing at him. He looked pale, almost bluish. It wouldn't be long now until she did have him under the table.

With practiced care, Juliet picked up her drink and downed it all. The girls went wild, but Juliet's joy was spoiled by how much she had to pee. All the drink was running through her like soda pop. She tried to keep her legs tightly together to not leak but knew she wasn't succeeding. She pulled the other girls in tightly because the room had grown so bitterly cold.

One of the boys had gotten a kitchen funnel. They lay Joey back and poured the drink down his throat and clapped but the girls called "Cheaters" as Joey slid into unconsciousness.

Juliet needed no such artificial aid. It was getting harder but she picked up her last drink and poured it down and then for good measure she downed his last drink. "See, I drank more than he did all by myself and I'm not even drunk," she said to jubilant girls. She couldn't be drunk. As long as she didn't drink rum and she didn't mix antihistamines with her booze she didn't get drunk. Drunks got all hot and took clothes off. She wasn't hot. She was cold and all the girls around her couldn't warm her up. Her toes began to feel numb and her hands were freezing as the world grew colder and colder and she slipped away into blackness.


	54. Oh gawd, there's two of them?

**Oh gawd, there's two of them?**

"I'm confident it's all harmless," Jeff said as he took a fork full of Greer's lemon poached salmon. "This is really good."

"Thank you." Greer speared a fork full of salad. "She was sure awfully anxious to get to Melissa's party and I didn't even think she liked Melissa."

"You're more up on her friends than I am."

"That's it, Melissa isn't one of them. They were kind of sort of friends in Junior High but after Melissa was hospitalized with an eating disorder last year and the year before all I've heard is her making fun of Melissa. She's been here a few times for doing homework assignments but that's it."

"Do you think she went someplace else?"

Greer nodded sadly.

"And if she has been at Melissa's?"

"Then I'll … have more faith in your judgment."

Confidently, he walked over to his computer and fired up a program. "This will turn the GPS on her phone on and send us her coordinates and she won't even know it."

"Tricky!"

It took a couple of minutes for the results to come back but eventually a map showing their neighborhood from Central Park to 2nd Ave and 62nd to 72nd Street came on screen. The location flag on the map was centered on the North West corner of 67th Street and Park Ave. Jeff's eyes narrowed. "Where does Melissa live?"

"In the Mayfair."

"That's what I thought." He shook his head, zooming in. "That's in the Drake."

"Could it be wrong?"

"No. It can tell the difference between her being in one side of the apartment or the other. It's that accurate. Could they have moved?"

"Last month they were in the same apartment. I helped London bring over a large diorama for a science project."

"Don't tell her I'm doing any of this," Jeff said as he sent another command from his computer.

She shook her head. "All is fair in parenting and war."

A minute later, pop music boomed from the speaker. Underneath the blaring pounding were youthful voices. Some they couldn't understand at all and some were occasionally clear. "We'll toss him in a cold bath until he wakes up." "Then what do we do with her," a girl said. "I dunno."

Jeff didn't even say anything. He just got up and headed for the door. Greer didn't have to ask him where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. She knew him too well and didn't even bother to try to stop him. Instead she grabbed her phone and followed him.

Down the street at 626 Park Avenue 14th floor, Andrew had been combining eating with a planning meeting with his programmer, Mei-Mei. Mei-Mei watched silently and then gave an awkward smile, poking at the carry out Chinese with her chopsticks. "Back home they call this American style cooking."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "It's all meat. Nobody cooks like this in China."

He nodded. "Oh yes. Americans so love their meat. It's incredible."

"If China ate like America, it would take twice as much grain to feed the animals as all the world produces."

He shook his head. "Americans and their appetites."

She was definitely cute. Not a beauty but she definitely had an exotic cuteness about her, with nice but tight curves and a pleasant smile. Part of him was quite anxious to try out her software. He judged her about thirty or perhaps just a little over, and she definitely was very intelligent and she was an expert in exactly the areas he needed help in.

And therein was the problem. Did he want to risk getting into a completely new relationship? There was an appeal to it but then he still didn't want to risk alienating Juliet, not with one … a bun still in the oven. He would soon have a son. He had always wanted a son but now that he was getting one he wasn't at all sure whether that made him happy or not.

Did Mei-Mei have someone, either here in the USA or back in China? Would she take him to the cleaners like Catherine did? Was he just imagining it or was she smiling at him and looking at him that way? Or would any attempts to start a relationship yield only trash like Siobhan's storage locker did. That was an utter disappointment. He had taken the whole bag and tossed it in the donation bin of a nearby charity shop.

He took a deep breath and decided to talk instead about the test logs and expanding the criteria to include standardized pan evaporation test data for predicting agricultural product prices. until the phone rang. It was the Sheridens, probably asking if Juliet could spend the night. It would do her good, he thought as he picked the phone up. "Hello."

"Andrew, is Juliet there?"

"No. Isn't she there with London?"

"London left about an hour ago for a party. Juliet said she was going right home."

He put his hand to his head in disappointment. She was supposed to come right back. "Whose party?"

"I don't know. She isn't where she said she'd be. She's three blocks away at 660 Park Avenue. We're going there now."

"It's not good," Jeff said in the background. "They're definitely in big trouble."

Andrew turned to Mei-Mei. "Wait here. There's some sort of trouble with Juliet again." He grabbed a jacket and went to the elevator, furious. He barely had pulled himself together enough from Siobhan's death to meet with Mei-Mei on the next phase of the project and Juliet was off partying again. How could he punish her? What was left that he could do to her? There was nothing left to take away from her and he couldn't even send her to live with her mother now.

He spotted Jeff and Greer up the street and ran to catch up to them. "What's going on?"

"It's bad," Jeff said, hurrying up the street as fast as he thought Gemma could follow.

Gemma was almost as out of breath as Andrew was. "Jeff found them on some computer program and he listened to London's phone from our apartment. It's a big party and from the comments it sounded like something wrong had happened."

"Two were passed out."

Andrew sighed because he was absolutely certain who one of the two was. How many times had she done this to him? The last time was when, a week ago in New Zealand? As soon as she came back to America, as soon as she's out of his sight, she's off drinking again. He had made another Catherine. He divorced the first Catherine but how do you divorce your own daughter?

They went into the lobby. Jeff walked right up to the doorman with rage in his eye. "There's a party in this building. It has teen-agers drinking and drugging. Our daughters are there. Where is it?"

"I am sorry sir, but I can't give you that kind of information."

"Then I will call the police and you will face two counts of custodial interference of the 1st degree which is a class E felony, endangering the welfare of a child which is a class A misdemeanor, and since there are drugs and alcohol involved you will also get hit with unlawfully dealing with a child in the first degree class which is another class A misdemeanor. Since they are both minors I will also push the police for your being charged with unlawful imprisonment which is another class E felony and kidnapping in the second degree which is a Class B felony. You will be defending yourself against charges with a minimum sentence of twenty years hard time without the possibility of parole. And if my daughter is hurt I will sue your ass off."

Greer pointed at Jeff's bulging arm muscles. "Or he might just beat you to death. He was Navy Golden Gloves and he still boxes."

"Apartment Eight B. The Waluskis."

As soon as they got off the elevator they knew right where to go to find them. They just had to follow the pounding of the music. Jeff pounded on the door. "Open up."

The music silenced but the door didn't move and nobody said a word. Jeff pounded again. "Open up. Now. I'm London's dad."

"I'm her mom."

"I am Juliet's father."

"They're not here."

"Bullshit," Jeff said. "London, I know you are in there. Open up."

"Or what," said a giggling teen-age boy. "You'll huff and puff and break the door down?"

"Yes."

"He will do it," Greer said.

The only response from inside the door was more laughter and giggling.

"Now what," Andrew asked.

"Stand back," Jeff said, and Andrew followed Greer into a retreat. Jeff spun and landed his size fourteen motorcycle boots with his best kick boxing move and the door frame cracked. He kicked it again and the door flew open and he burst through the doorway.

"That's a father," Greer said admiringly, following him.

Andrew shook his head, wondering if it was in him to batter down a door to find his child. He had punched Henry but that was different. It was for his pride and not for love. He kept seeing the moment that Bridget had punched Mr. Carpenter without a moment's hesitation. She did and he didn't. What did that say about her and about him?

"Hey, you can't do that," shouted one of the boys. "Get on out of here."

Instinctively, Jeff dropped into boxing stance, his chin down and fists up, left hand up to guard his whole body and left hand up to guard his face, body turned and feet ready to dance. "Try it. Make me," he roared.

London was backed into a corner, trying to hide behind the paint in terror. "You, out into the hall," he bellowed.

"Where is Juliet," Andrew said, trying to shout but somehow not quite making it. "Juliet."

"The master bedroom, back and to the right," London finally said, trying to skulk out with her mother.

Andrew went back, fully expecting to find her in a state of undress and with a naked boy. Instead he found her alone laying on a bed, fully clothed. She didn't look right. So pale and so blue. "Juliet, wake up," he said, but she didn't stir. He shook her but still no movement. He patted her face and she was so cold and clammy. "Juliet?"

He shrank back in horror. She looked dead. He didn't even think she was breathing. Jeff came in and checked her pulse. It was weak and slow but it was still there. "Greer," he yelled. "Greer."

One of the girls came on in. "She's just sleeping it off."

"Call 911," Jeff said, and Andrew pulled out his phone and did so, his hands and voice shaking, begging the dispatcher to hurry the paramedics as Jeff rolled Juliet on her side and continued to breathe for her.

Greer came in, followed by a very terrified looking London and escorted by a rather portly neighbor in a bathrobe. Juliet was now beginning to gag.

Jeff turned to them. "We need anything to warm her up. Heating pad, electric blanket, anything."

The neighbor said "I have an electric suit for skiing."

"London, run and get it."

Andrew wanted to do something, anything to help. He felt so lost and hopeless. Nothing had turned out right. Not Catherine, not Siobhan and not Juliet. The last of his family was slipping away.

London came back with the electric warming jacket and pants. Of course they were far too big for her but Andrew and Greer slid her in anyway as London plugged the charger in to fire the suit up.

Andrew rubbed Juliet's hands. What else could he do? Someone who was almost a stranger was giving her the breath of life. Suddenly all of his money and all of his plans didn't seem to be worth anything.

London timidly said "What do we do about Joey?"

Greer looked up with a confused look. "Joey?"

"The boys have him in his bath tub to wake him up."

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Andrew, you check," he said between breaths.

Andrew didn't want to leave Juliet, but he forced himself to. Right now Jeff could help her and he couldn't.

In the bath tub was a fully clothed teen age boy who looked almost as white as the porcelain tub. He was twitching uncontrollably and he was gagging on the vomit that was coming out of his mouth. As hard as it was to day, Andrew shouted "Jeff you had better get on in here."

"We gave him black coffee and a cold shower to sober him up," one of the boys said timidly.

"Negative," came back Jeff's enraged response as he pulled Joey out of the tub. "Hypothermia kills. Coffee makes dehydration and that kills." He pulled him over to his side to clear the vomit and began pulling the wet clothes off. "Blankets, anything. Now."

Andrew went back to Juliet. Greer had taken over for breathing for her.

Why didn't he know that Juliet and London were in trouble? Jeff and Greer knew, and they even knew right where she was. He was such a failure as a parent. This time it could cost Juliet her life.

After what seemed like an eternity, the paramedics came. "Which way," they said.

Andrew pointed to the bedroom and the bathroom.

"Oh Gawd," said the paramedic. "There's two of them?"

Andrew nodded. "My daughter is in the bedroom. Please save her."

One went after Juliet and the other went after Joey. Andrew followed the one that went into the bedroom. The paramedic gave her oxygen and an IV tube and together they transferred her to a gurney.

"Will she be alright," Andrew asked nervously as he helped guide the gurney out.

The paramedic looked back with that sad "I have no idea" look as they hurried down the hallway.

In the bathroom, Jeff had been giving Joey CPR. The paramedic took over and gave him oxygen. "What happened?"

"Alcohol poisoning. He presented with hypothermia and in seizure and gagging. I turned him over to clear the airway and he went into cardiac arrest."

"You a doctor," the paramedic asked as he checked the vitals on Joey and then radioed them in.

Jeff shook his head. "Navy combat medic. 1st Battalion 11th Marines."

The approval to use the paddles came back. Jeff gave him space. Greer and London sat on the couch in the living room holding each other tightly. "Daddy, I just want to go home now."

"No," he said firmly.

"What," Greer said.

"We are going to the hospital with them. You will see the consequences of your actions all the way through."

"Dad, I promise I will never, ever drink again."

"We are going. You will see this all the way through."

"I can't. I feel sick."

"We're going."

"Why do you hate me," London said, running down the hall.

Greer ran after her. "Your father doesn't hate you."

Andrew rode in the ambulance with Juliet and the paramedics. As the ambulance went west on 65th Street and then down FDR Drive he knew exactly where the fates were taking Juliet. It was ironic but he couldn't argue. They were well known to be the best in emergency medicine and detoxing the overdosed.

He watched the monitors and by now he had learned what the numbers all meant. She was clinging onto life by a thread and there was nothing all his money could do about it.


	55. Dip, dip BEEP

Dip, dip BEEP

Dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP. As long as the monitor made those sounds, she had to be OK. Two pulse beats and then one respiration, just keep it up. As he held her Juliet's so cold hand, Andrew could not believe he was here in Bellevue's E & R again and yet here he was. His life had descended into a month of nothing less than insanity.

It was now the morning of Monday the 30th, the last day of April. They said April showers brought May flowers. Would his May prove happier or would the May flowers be for Juliet's funeral?

His neighbor on the right side of the curtain was a mother whose eighteen month old daughter was full of blood apparently from vaginal bleeding being told that they were getting a rape crisis kit for her. The mother cried that she was just a baby. The doctor said they have children younger than her raped all the time. His neighbor on the left side was a young black man who apparently was high on cocaine. He was cursing profusely and incoherently at the police who brought him in and the hand cuffs and foot shackles holding him to the bed frame as he pulled and pulled to free himself. The nurses had to strap him down to the bed.

He watched as a young man with blood streaming from his face was wheeled in by paramedics as they talked to a nurse. "He was trying to break up a fight, and his head somehow got between a baseball bat and the intended victim's head. "

A young intern came in. She didn't look much older than Juliet and spoke very quickly, as if she had only a few seconds to explain everything. "Your daughter's blood alcohol level was .45."

Andrew knew everyone always said 0.40 was the fatal level. "Is she dying?"

"Her situation is hopeful but she's not out of the woods yet."

"Why don't you pump her stomach?"

"It's too late. She'd absorbed it all by the time she got here."

"Can't you do something?"

"We are doing all we can. She's on oxygen and an IV with glucose and thiamine as well as being careful monitored."

"Please, please."

"Mr. Martin you should be very, very grateful."

"Grateful? For what?"

"Grateful that she's still alive and that your friend was there with you. If it weren't for him she'd be dead now."

"We're in free fall," said a nurse. "No exam beds or hallway space and everyone else is still trying to divert here. We got a boy with a broken elbow and I'm doing urine and SED rate blood draws in the waiting room on a girl with a possible appendicitis. We need an exam on them."

The doctor ducked out quickly. "What are the girl's symptoms?"

Dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP.

The voices around him began to blend all into one stream of chaos and suffering in Andrew's mind. "Nausea, vomiting, fever, headache … " As the nurse's voice drifted away he heard a man bellowing. "How could you let this happen to me?"

A terrified mother was his new neighbor to the right. "He has these bruises that get worse," she said with a distinctly Hispanic accent.

"Is there anyone spanking him," asked a very young sounding doctor.

"It was too late," said a man with an Indian accent. "They tried everything at the scene. We tried everything."

"No. Nothing," the woman said. "I live alone. My husband is stationed in Afghanistan."

"I'm going to order a blood test." Andrew could hear the curtains fling open. Nurse, give me a CBC on this child, stat."

As the man and the Indian doctor argued, a nurse and a doctor sounded like they too were going to get into an argument. "Um, doctor? This patient you admitted with COPD exacerbation sounds really tight...but you didn't order any breathing treatments."

"Yes I did," said the doctor. "Did you look at the orders?"

"No, but the respiratory team told me."

"I wouldn't have admitted someone with COPD exacerbation without ordering breathing treatments. I swear I ordered them for this patient. Do you have the chart?"

"Yes."

"Can you turn to the orders, please?"

"Yes. Oh, here it is. Yes you did order it. Sorry."

It was truly confidence inspiring.

Dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP.

As the shouting man grew louder, a big security guard bellowed "Sir, I am going to escort you outside of patient care to the quiet room. They will help you there."

He could hear the woman next to him praying in Spanish. He wasn't really a believer, he thought. Maybe a little bit, from his mother. He had always ridiculed foxhole prayers. But he understood them tonight.

"What help can you give me now?"

"We have a social worker and a chaplain. Please go with the guard to the quiet room area."

"Take your hands off of me. Do you know who I am?"

"No," rumbled the guard, "and I don't care."

Dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP.

"Dear God," Andrew said quietly. "Please. Please let her live. Please tell me what to do. I'll do anything. Just let her live and don't let her become her mother."

"I'm leaving" wheezed a young man who walked by his still open curtain. "I can't stay. I got to keep moving."

"You can't go," said a nurse. "With all the aspirin you took, your kidneys are shutting down and your electrolytes are way off. Also, you have pneumonia."

"Got to keep moving," he said with a loud cough.

Dip, dip BEEP, dip, dip BEEP.

"Please. I'll do anything. Just tell me what." Andrew prayed and prayed. It felt like it was for hours but he had no idea how long it was. As he prayed he heard the diagnoses of the patients around them. He heard them pump a bottle of pills from the stomach of a girl Juliet's age. He heard the mother next to him leave crying when the doctor told her that the bruises were from leukemia. He didn't know how long he had been praying when a nurse and two orderlies walked in. "An ICU room is now open. We're transferring her now."

"Thank you." Andrew was quite sure what it meant when an ICU bed suddenly became available at this hour but he didn't care if it meant there was for Juliet now.

Oddly, he suddenly felt an odd feeling, as if a little voice inside his head said that his prayer had been granted. It was a tiny thing, something he might just have imagined. Yet it was there and he clung to it as surely as he clung to Juliet's hand. Perhaps the Angel of Death really had passed them over.

He went out to the waiting room to hit the bathroom before going up to the ICU. Jeff and Greer were there, along with London. London was wailing. Greer had her arm around London, as if trying to console her. Jeff was staring at the both of them sternly as if to keep them riveted in position. He caught Jeff's gaze and waved him over.

"I want to thank you for saving Juliet's life."

"'Through the gates of hell for a wounded Marine.' It really was nothing." He looked away sadly, watching London. "I should have been there sooner."

"Thank you again. I will be forever grateful." He looked at London, puzzled. "Why is she crying now? She wasn't crying over Juliet when I left."

"She's crying about the boy."

"Why?"

"He died."

Andrew's eyes grew wide, remembering the doctor who told him that he should be grateful and the suddenly open ICU room.

"I am her father," Jeff said. "Not all of life's lessons are pleasant. This is one of them she will never forget. Your actions have lasting consequences, like it or not."

Andrew nodded, understanding all too well. "What about the firm? What will they say when you're not there tomorrow?"

"Fuck it. When it's all over, it won't matter how high I rose as a partner in the firm. All I have is my wife and my child."

Andrew pretended to understand and agree, but as he walked to the elevator to go to the ICU he felt as weak and lacking as when he saw Jeff kick down the door. He had never put Juliet before his career. Would he now repeat the same mistakes all over again? He did not know, but tonight he would not. He pulled out his phone and left a message for Claudine that he would not be in tomorrow due to a family emergency and to cancel all meetings with his apologies.


	56. Monday Morning

Monday Morning

Catherine lay back on the bunk of her cell, eating a bologna sandwich. She held her pencil stub and a blank post card. She was allowed to send one post card a week. She knew where to address it.

Juliet Martin

626 Park Ave

Apartment 1400

New York, New York

10023

That was the easy part. She had nobody else to address it to. Juliet was the closest thing to a friend that she had left on the planet. But what should she say and what was the chance that the post cards were actually getting through?

Was Andrew actually blocking her post cards? Was Juliet so angry that she would refuse to read them? Quite possibly, but still Catherine had to try.

She concentrated on what to say in so little space. Finally she decided, finished her sandwich and wrote it.

"Happy Birthday Juliet. I hope all is well and wonderful on your big sixteenth! I love you so much and am sorry for everything. I was insane. Please forgive me. Please write back. It is so lonely here. I live in a steel solitary confinement cell. It's like being an animal in a cage. Please forgive me. Please write. I have lost everything. I don't want to lose you, the most important thing to me in the world. Your mother."

That was as much as she could make fit on the post card. She wondered if it would do the job. Would she actually be able to get a visit and maybe even a package? She shrugged – there was nothing to lose and Juliet had been so easy to control. Surely she could manipulate her own daughter that even from her prison cell. It was just a matter of patience and being determined.

Victor Machado lay on the couch of his psychotherapist, Dr. Claire Callahan. He always laid on the couch during their sessions. Why not, he thought. He may as well relax his back as long as the Bureau was paying for it.

She wasn't really his psychiatrist personally. She was contracted to the FBI field office in Denver where he was stationed. The FBI had ordered him to see a therapist because he had shot Rex Barton, Catherine Martin's hired killer. Little did the FBI understand that Victor could ventilate slimeballs like Barton every day and he would have enjoyed it as stress relief. Of course he couldn't tell his shrink that. He had to pretend to feel bad. Otherwise she'd think he was crazy.

"I had just finished making a deposition on a case right before coming here. I was already depressed enough."

"What kind of case?"

"A child pornography ring."

She nodded excitedly. "I saw that on the news. That was a good bust. Why should that make you depressed?"

"It was because of the part my boss ordered me to do in the case. I wasn't part of the technical investigation. I wasn't part of the eight man SWAT team that got to dress up in tactical black and smash down the door of the little pervert's apartment and toss the cuffs on him. I was the one that had to establish an on line relationship with him in chat rooms to get proof that he had distributed child pornography over the internet. "

"Was that morally distasteful to you?"

Victor shook his head. "The boss lady boss told the whole field office in a meeting that I was 'The best one qualified' for the assignment. Best qualified to sound like a pervert? What a compliment!"

She nodded. "That was supremely tacky."

"I try to calmly accept it. I am a good agent and I keep telling myself that it will quiet down. But it doesn't stop. Even today, Hewett joined in on the torture."

"How?"

"I had just come back to my desk after the deposition, feeling disgusted enough about how I had pretended to be 'Socrates' on line and I talked 'GoatBoy' into directly sending me some pictures that would make you throw up when Hewett walks up behind me and slaps me on the back in that jackass way he does and said nice and loud so even the people outside in the waiting room could hear it 'Hey Machado, Guess what. I got some news on your lover girl, Siobhan Martin.'"

"What did you do?"

"I just looked up and said something like 'Yes' with all the calm I could muster."

"What happened next?"

"He handed me two e-mails and told me that Siobhan Martin held the record for the shortest time on the Bureau's ten most wanted list."

Dr. Callahan looked puzzled. "What?"

"It was true. The first was the one dated Friday at 7:00 PM Eastern time where she was named to the FBI's 10 most wanted list because of warrants for four murders, three of them with supporting video evidence. The second was dated early Saturday morning, removing her from the list because she had died about 10:00 PM Eastern time."

"Wow," said Callahan. "That was weird."

"It was amazing. The clowns at the NYPD actually cornered her."

"This was the one who actually was Siobhan Martin, right?"

Victor nodded. "Yeah."

"And you never met her."

"Nope."

"What about the woman you were trying to help?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. "

"She didn't mean anything?"

"Not like that. She was always just a means to an end."

"Revenge?"

Victor nodded. "Revenge."

"Now that you have your revenge, how do you feel?"

"Better than if I didn't have it, I guess. At least he paid for killing them."

"And Shaylene?"

"Every week she seems a little farther away but she's still in my mind every day. When will I get over it?"

"You won't ever get over it. All you do is learn how to live with it."

Andrew woke up on a small fold out bed in Juliet's room. The ICU rooms were nice enough to have one for the parents. It felt rather like sleeping on a park bench but still it was someplace he could crash and it was in the room.

He checked his phone. It was 10:12 in the morning. He must have finally fallen asleep a little before dawn.

Juliet's stirrings had woken him. She looked around, looking ill and confused. "Where am I?"

"The Intensive Care Unit."

"How did I get here?"

"You got here by ambulance. What do you remember?"

She looked at him. What could she say that wouldn't lead to her being utterly grounded? She looked at him again, and his eyes seem to bore right through her. She knew that look. Her Aunt Eirian had it as she was scraped off the bathroom floor. Finally, he said "I was there. Don't lie. I want to know how much of it you remember."

She sighed heavily, her head throbbing mercilessly. There was no way out of this. She wanted to just run away and hide but she knew he wouldn't let her do that. "We were at Joey Wisnuski's place. London dragged me there after we finished her homework. I was just going to stay for a minute or two. I told them I just wanted a soda even though it's so hard trying to be cool with all those people there and I really, really needed one but I said I would stay clean and then get out of there as fast as I could. But Joey called me all baby for not drinking his trashcan punch. He was so drunk and he was acting like such a prick and I just couldn't live it down in front of all my friends. I would have been the laughing stock of the whole High School. I told him I didn't drink from trashcans but then he pulled out a good bottle of rye. I always could handle rye. I really thought I could have just one and that would be it but after that it became a challenge and I just wanted to wipe that stupid grin off his face and drink him under the table."

Andrew turned away. He would remain calm. Now was not the time, he knew. But what should he do? "How many glasses do you remember having?"

"Two, three, I am not sure."

He had been through this so many times with Catherine. So many drunken driving arrests, so many rehabs, so many times she promised to do better and so many times she just threw it all away and went right back to her truest lover, the bottle. He finally fled into Siobhan's arms, sure he could take Juliet with him and save her. Then he learned the hard way that even when the mother is a drunk the law gives her the children. He thought his days of insane drunken antics would end with Catherine, especially now that Catherine was confined in prison. But now he saw that he would have to go through it all over again with Juliet.

"Did I at least beat him? Did I drink him under the table?"

Andrew didn't turn around. He didn't want her to see what he was feeling. "You could say that."

"Oh good."

"In fact, you beat him so well that he has given up drinking and he will never have another drink again."

"Wow. That's amazing."

"Not really. He's dead."

"What?"

"They couldn't save him. He died this morning in this room, in your bed."

She looked around in horror. "That's sick."

"Yes, but it's true." He turned to the door, averting her gaze. "I need to get some air. I'll be back."

Andrew went up to the sixteenth floor to Bridget's room. He found her lying in bed, remote control in her hand, going through the TV channels. He smiled at the sight. Channel surfing was doubly unprofitable when she couldn't see what channel she had flipped to and half the channels were in languages she couldn't understand. He watched her finally settle on Sir David Attenborough's classic nature documentary "The Private Lives of Plants."

He watched her for a moment and considered going in. He had gone up there with the intention of getting her aide with Juliet. Yet he couldn't quite humble himself to turn Juliet over to her yet. That would be too easy a surrender to the winds fate that were blowing him on a course he didn't want, and taking away all of his pride and free will in the process.

Back in her hospital room, Juliet curled up and began to cry. She knew what his silently leaving meant all too well. When he was just angry, he yelled. When he was truly furious, he became silent, forcing himself to act with the greatest of British civilization. It would be easier if he screamed and ranted and tore her things apart like Catherine did. At least then she could be mad at him.

Was what he said really true, she asked herself, but she knew without a doubt that it was. He might have a lot of faults but he didn't lie to her, not about something like this. Joey was dead and it was all her fault.

She hadn't meant to hurt anyone but everyone around her always gets hurt. She felt like Frankenstein's monster and began planning how to just get it all over with before she hurt anyone else.


	57. The Night Fog

**The Night Fog**

She couldn't move. She was in the dark, tied up and held back against a wall. Something cold and hard was pressing against the underside of her throat, like a metal pipe. She knew what it was. She knew that when the gun fired it would be her death. She waited and waited, sweating in fear. Then it happened with a roar and a flash. She had heard how things went in slow motion when you were about to die. She could feel the bullet go through the roof of her mouth and out the top of her skull and she could feel the world slip away as she woke up with in a cold sweat with her heart pounding.

She looked around and saw she was in a hospital. Slowly bits of last night and the morning came back and she didn't like what she had remembered. It couldn't really be true, could it?

One part of her dream was true. The top of her head did feel like it had been blown off. It was then that she noticed there was an IV line in her hand so she carefully used her other hand to check herself. Her head and her hair were still there, but her head did hurt so badly that she was almost blinded by it.

The more she thought of how she ended up in the hospital the worse the grinding, shaky feeling was inside her. It was so frustrating. Why did everything have to fail so miserably? She just wanted to be a part of the group. What was wrong with that? She just wanted to feel good, to feel normal for a night. She was so angry with herself that every time she tried something seemed to go horribly, horribly wrong.

She looked around the room. Andrew was asleep again on the bench by the window. She looked at the East river. It had to be afternoon, late afternoon.

She needed a drink. Really badly, worse than any time in her life she needed a drink. It wasn't just that she wanted to enjoy the feeling. It wasn't that she wanted to silence the voices in her head. Her whole body was craving a drink. She was sure she couldn't ask anyone for it but it was so close she could smell it. Unfortunately she was so wired up and had so many tubes stuck into so many parts of her that she was afraid to move so she began to carefully look and feel around her bed until she finally found a nurse's call button.

In a few minutes a little oriental woman in nurse's blues came in. Her nametag read "Santos" and she spoke with an accent Juliet didn't know. "How are you doing, Dearie?"

"I want to go to the bathroom."

"Number one or number two?"

"Number one. What difference does it make?"

"You have a cath. It will take care of that for you."

"I want to go like … normal. Can you take it out?"

Andrew stirred a little, watching and listening.

"You were a very naughty girl and so you became very sick. The doctor will have to give permission for any change."

"Please ask. It hurts and it's really weird."

The nurse nodded. "It's almost dinner time. Are you up to anything to eat?"

"Orange juice. I'm really craving lots and lots of orange juice and a Pepsi or a coke. My head is splitting."

"That's good. The more healthy things you drink the faster the poison will wash out of you."

Andrew got up and pulled a chair over. "You almost died."

Juliet nodded. She really didn't want to hear his speeches but knew it was best to just lay back and not argue.

"Do you want to get yourself killed? Do you want to get yourself in trouble like at Eirian's?"

"No, Dad."

"Are you going to be logical?"

"Yes. I'll stay clean. I promise."

"Good. How are you doing?"

"Dad, I just want to go home and get back to my life." She began to cry. The tears just welled up and came.

Andrew held her head and gently kissed her forehead. "Things will be alright. You know now to just be sensible and stay away from it."

"Yes. I promise."

He got her a tissue. "I need to make a couple of phone calls. Are you going to be alright here?"

"It's not like I am leaving. I'll be fine."

He left and she was so relieved. She loved him but he was so gullible and easy to control and she just couldn't deal with his self-righteousness logical arguments at the moment.

Andrew went down the hall to the waiting room area and turned on his phone. As he expected, he had several messages from the office. He sat down and called.

"Martin Charles Finance" said Claudine on the other end. "How may I direct your call?"

"It's me. Just checking in."

"Oh, Andrew! Thank Heavens that you called. Tim is in one of his moods. Let me transfer you."

Andrew rolled his eyes. Tim would show up today.

"Andrew," said Tim. "I need you in the office."

"I'm out on family emergency leave."

"Over Siobhan? She isn't worth it."

"Oh God yes, Siobhan. With everything I forgot all about her. Would you mind if I had Claudine make all the arrangements and just bill it to my card? I don't have time to deal with it."

"I guess … You're not out because of Siobhan?"

"Juliet is in the intensive care unit at Bellevue Hospital. She got into a drinking contest with a boy at a party and ended up here with alcohol poisoning. The boy died."

There was silence for the longest time on the phone. "I'm sorry. Is she going to be alright?"

"I think she'll physically recover."

"The timing stinks but I need you here at the office. We have a huge opportunity. "

"My daughter is in the ICU. I'm not going to leave her."

"Let's talk more tomorrow. We'll see how she is doing. I'll send you back to Claudine."

After what seemed like an eternity of listening to the company on hold spiel, Claudine finally picked up the line. "Hi, Andrew. Tim said you have some … special needs … to take care of."

"Yes, thank you. She's in the morgue. Have her buried in the Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee, Oklahoma. They'll put her in the Black North of the cemetery because of her suicide but try to get her as near to her son Sean Kelly if possible."

"Sean Kelly. Greenhill Cemetary. Muskogee. No problem. Any desired … arrangements?"

He thought for a minute. "No, I guess I hadn't thought. Keep it … appropriate … in budget."

She laughed for a minute and then choked it back. "Appropriate? If you want to go low price I could get you a casket from eBay."

Andrew smiled. "Siobhan Martin spending eternity in a used coffin from eBay. How utterly perfect!"

"I had to do my mother's arrangements. You'll want death certificates. I'll get you a bunch."

"Thank you."

"Do you want any services or any notices? Any headstone?"

"No, nothing." Something in him wanted Siobhan to simply disappear in the night fog.


	58. The Blind Leading the Blind

**The Blind Leading the Blind**

Andrew sat in the chair of his home office and yawned loudly as he was going over the results of the last set of test runs from MeiMei's last update. It wasn't that he was bored. To the contrary, the results were quite fascinating. Based upon the data from the last two years, the system made choices that would have made a quite respectable twelve percent average profit each quarter. He wasn't satisfied. Deep inside he knew there was something missing. It missed several major profit makers and favored heavily several that provided little gain.

He was going to research the precise circumstances of these missed opportunities to decide how to improve the chances of finding them in the future when the phone rang. He flinched. He knew who was calling without even picking it up. Things had gone too smoothly. Juliet said everything would be just fine. She was just going to sleep there and he may as well go home and sleep tight and he had believed her. If all went well the nurses said they were going to move her out of the ICU tomorrow. What had gone wrong now?

He had to answer it, like it or not. "Hello," he said nervously.

A woman's voice was on the line. "Hi. Is this Mr. Martin?"

"Yes."

"This is Nurse Daniels at Bellevue. I'm the Pediatric ICU nursing supervisor."

He sighed. He could just hear it coming. He kept wondering what it was but he could feel it coming.

"Your daughter was caught pouring the alcohol based hand sanitizer in her orange juice this evening."

He shook his head in astonishment. "Just brill."

"Excuse me. I didn't catch that."

"Nothing. How bad is she?"

"Physically, she is unharmed. She was caught and hardly got a sip in her. But you really need to see this."

She didn't need to finish it. "I will come directly. Thank you for the alert."

He walked out on the balcony and looked at the moon. It wasn't a full moon yet. It wouldn't be for days. Yet the whole world was lunatic. It seemed blustery out. If the circumstances had been calmer he would have enjoyed it and might have taken a delicious midnight walk. But life seemed to afford him no such pleasures.

He grabbed his jacket and took a cab down to what was becoming his least favorite spot on Earth. As he traveled in the dark down that painfully familiar section of FDR Drive, he kept wondering what to do. He felt utterly alone and he hated the feeling. He wanted to have someone with him, but who? Jeff? He barely knew him. Solomon? His children were too young. James, Tim Arbogast's chauffeur? No, he was always boasting about how wonderful his children were and he hated to admit to Tim that he was utterly failing as a father.

He couldn't look like an idiot to Tim but Juliet seemed to be doing everything possible to undermine his situation at Martin Charles.

He knew one subject matter expert. He could even feel safe that they wouldn't leak unwanted information back to Arbogast. He didn't want to use her but now he felt he had little choice.

He went up to the 16th floor and went to Bridget's room. It was past normal visiting hours but by now everyone knew who he was. He looked at her for a moment as she lay on her bed in the room. She was so still she looked asleep, yet she turned in his direction and with those two patched eyes looked at his direction and said "Who is there?"

"Me."

She smiled. "Andrew! I was dreaming of you." She patted the bed. "Come on over and make my dreams into reality."

"Unfortunately this isn't a social visit."

She held her breath in apprehension. "What's happened?"

"It's Juliet. Last night she drank herself into alcohol poisoning at a party. She's in the ICU. The nurses just called. She was caught drinking hand cleaner."

Bridget's face turned dark. "I didn't know she was this bad. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I feel so helpless."

"Your power is very limited. If she insists on destroying herself she'll find a way. You can try to keep her safe until she's eighteen but then you will have no power to control her."

He sat, feeling like the pits of a great abyss were clawing at him. "Are you saying I should give up and let her become Catherine?"

"No. But you have to be realistic. How much has she been drinking?"

"More than I thought."

"Where is she now?"

"She's in the ICU on the tenth floor."

"Here?"

He nodded, even though she couldn't see it. "Yes."

She hopped out of bed and ripped the monitor off her finger, shouting furiously. "Here, since yesterday, and you didn't even tell me?" She felt her way about to make it out to the hallway. Her rear opening nightie showed the whole world her rather pretty butt.

"Here, take my jacket," he said, putting it on her and walking her to the elevator.

Juliet's appearance was frightening to Andrew. Her skin was so pale. She was going through the sounds and motions of vomiting but apparently there was nothing left to come up. A nurse was trying to get her to sip water but her hands were visibly shaking when she tried to hold the cup. She turned to him with anger in her eyes. "Just say it. Get it over with."

"Say what?"

"What a failure and a disappointment I am."

"I was not going to say that."

"But I can see it on your face. I know you're thinking it."

He didn't know how to respond to that. She knew him too well.

Bridget turned, carefully walking toward Juliet's voice until she found her and ran her hands through her sweat soaked hair. "We both love you and care about you but have us so confused."

"I am bad. I hurt everyone. You should just let me go."

"No, Sweetie. We would both go through Hell for you. We love you."

"You don't know how bad I am."

"We still love you."

"Then get me a drink," she said with a wild look in her eye. "Just one drink, a little something to stop the shaking."

"I'm sorry, Sweetie. We can't."

"But you don't know what this is like."

"I know exactly what detox is like. I've been through it more than once. But you have good doctors here who will help."

Andrew worked up the courage to go up to her and hold her hand. He wanted to say something. He wanted to do the right thing. He just didn't know what it was. He was completely disappointed with her. She had broken her promise within hours of making it. But he didn't think now was the time to tell her.

Juliet's vomit interrupted the family hug. Unfortunately, the sound of her gagging was making Bridget feel like she was going to throw up. Andrew led her out and to a chair in the ICU waiting room where she could sit and catch her breath and got her some water.

Nurse Daniels sat with them. "Your daughter apparently was on a three day bender. She admitted getting loaded Wednesday, skipping Thursday and then doing mouthwash and hand sanitizer Friday and Saturday followed Sunday's toxic overdose. She'd got a big problem."

"I know." He had been avoiding admitting it to himself but he had no alternative now.

"She needs to be transferred to the detox unit. This isn't an ICU problem and they can help her better there."

Andrew nodded in agreement but deep inside he hated the thought of repeating Catherine's hopeless rounds of rehab. He tried to hold back tears but he was too tired to succeed.

Bridget found his hands and held them tight. "I know this is painful for you, but you have to try. You have to love her but don't rescue her."

"I don't understand."

"She has to recognize and accept her alcoholism on her own. You can't just bail her out from her own bad decisions. Don't let her comfortably remain in her alcoholism but stand ready to help guide her out once she has come to her moment where she makes the decision to do something better."

Andrew sagged, feeling like he had just been beaten to death. He wanted to protect his daughter. From every fiber of his being he wanted to hold her in his arms and just take all of Juliet's sickness and pain away. "Shiv, I don't know if I can do this."

"You can because we will do it together."


	59. Does it get any better than this?

**Does it get any better than this?**

Aunt Eirian stood over her hospital bed, furious. "You're a spoiled Yank rumpig, Juliet. Nobody wants a derro boonerette on drunkabout. Nobody wants you."

"I'm sorry," Juliet said, shrinking back in the bed, crying. "I'm so sorry." Then mercifully Aunt Eirian just disappeared.

They had moved her. She wasn't sure where to or when but this wasn't the same room. Compared to the neat, spacious room in the ICU, this place was a dump. There was a smell of sickness to it, like it couldn't quite get cleaned out.

She tried to go back to sleep but her gown and her sheets were sweat soaked. It felt like her blood was boiling inside her and racing at jet speed. A telephone was ringing in her ears and it wouldn't stop.

A frighteningly huge black male nurse with gold earrings came in and looked her up and down. She looked at him and he stayed there. He really was there. She could even smell him. She was positive he was going to rape her but instead he said "You want some Gatorade" with a deep rumble.

She nodded and he went out and got her a cup with a lid and a straw. She put out her hand for it but it was shaking so badly she had to use both hands just to hold it. "There, take it easy, you drink it down and you'll feel better. You need to wash that crap out of you."

The Gatorade was so good. She didn't think she'd ever been so thirsty. Her lips were dried and her mouth felt dusty like the Las Vegas desert. It was wonderful until it came back up again. The nurse didn't seem surprised by any of it though. He just handed her a bowl and got her another cup of Gatorade. "Drink. You don't want dry heaves."

He checked her blood pressure and shook his head as he wrote it down, then looked at her with sad eyes that seemed to be asking "Why did you do this to yourself?" Instead he sighed and said "I'll send in an orderly to clean up but now I have to check the other rooms. Drink, and use the bowl. I'll be back soon."

He was gone and she was alone again, just her, her cup and her barf bowl. It was so bare and depressing. She had never felt lonelier in her life than that moment. The whole universe had withdrawn from her.

She sat on the bed with her bowl beside her and sipped her drink. Her arms itched like there were ants running around under her skin. Were there? She wasn't sure. She thought she saw something under her skin for a moment but wasn't sure. Whatever it was she just couldn't help but scratch it.

She scratched and scratched. She was making a mess of herself but there was nothing else she could do.

When the nurse finally came back in he looked at the bloody streaks on her arms. "You got the itchy bloods?"

"It's so bad. Please help me."

"I'll tell the doctor when he comes. He can give you something."

"When will that be?"

"Don't know even then. They have to send it from pharmacy and sometimes they're really slow."

"It hurts. Please call the doctor now."

"I can give you something now. It helps."

She nodded, desperate enough for anything. "Please."

Eventually he came back with a restaurant service polybucket of water with ice in it, a stack of bathroom paper towels and a small bottle of Selsun Blue Medicated anti-dandruff shampoo. "Clean up and rub in the shampoo lather where it itches."

"Shouldn't I just take a shower?"

He laughed. "No, girl. You got the shakes. Don't go fall in my shower and split your head open."

She started wiping down her arms. "Does it get any better than this?"

"Eventually. Eventually life gets good again. But you got to see this through to the end." With that he left.

The shampoo did help. It wasn't taking it all away but the itching was much more bearable. As she slipped down the gown to scrub her chest, she could see that she wasn't alone. There was a little Neanderthal ape-man with shiny black eyes wearing a blue jogging suit was perched on her wall. Juliet just turned her back and continued washing.


	60. Playing the Game

**Playing the Game**

Andrew woke up all alone. Nobody was there. No Juliet, no Siobhan, nobody. He sat up in bed and listened and the only sounds of life he could hear were the street noises outside the apartment.

Was this to be the rest of his life? He felt so old and abandoned. When he looked in the mirror he was surprised at how bad he looked. His face was drawn and in all the chaos he was long overdue for a haircut. His skin had broken out. He hadn't had pimples since the divorce but there they were on his chest, back and nose.

Bridget had advised him to relax and go to work. How odd, to go to work for stress relief and companionship. Yet that was just what he was doing. There was comfort in going through his morning routine. It made him feel a bit closer to normal.

Was the rest of his life going to be like this, he wondered. Would he spend the rest of his life waking up to an empty house and a broken family? He knew so many businessmen on Park Avenue who did.

As he brushed his teeth he wondered if he should get a dog. He would want a real dog, a man's dog not those little fluffy things. Something that would stand by his side and always love him just for being exactly who he was. Maybe he would get a Doberman. They had a good look to them. Then he sadly had to admit to himself that he wouldn't have time to take care of a dog, not the way he was living.

It was nearly 10:00 when he reached the office. Everyone seemed surprised when he came in, everyone except Tim. "You look lousy," he said. "Come in, and close the door behind you."

Andrew followed his instructions. Tim had mentioned that there was a major opportunity waiting. Whatever it was, he seemed quite anxious about it.

"Sit," Tim said, and like the well trained dog he wished for Andrew did. "What do you know about rare earth metals?"

"Not much. They're expensive."

"Almost as valuable as gold and Red China has 95% of the world's production of them but they have been cutting way back on their exports so the price is rising fast. Suddenly Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in Israel wants to buy a lot of it, and like everything they do they want to be very quiet about it."

"And you want to sell it to them?"

"It's a trade in favors. I need something to happen. Someone big needs these rare earth ore shipments to invisibly happen, and you're going to be a part of the operation. The second largest reserves in the world are in North Korea. But being the ignorant Commie bastards they are they can barely scratch it out of the ground to mine it."

"Isn't trade with North Korea illegal?"

"It is for me but not for you. Washington hates them almost as much as they hate us but the rest of the world likes doing business with them. All you're doing is legally importing North Korean ore into the EEC and selling it to a refinery in South Africa and then buying the refined metal back from the refinery and shipping it to Israel."

"Isn't North Korea the axis of evil and all that stuff?"

"They're the scum of the Earth but what's that got to do with anything?"

Andrew raised an eyebrow, realizing how little it did in business. "So how do I tie in?"

"You give plausible deniability. On paper, North Korea and Israel hate each other and neither of them wants to be caught in an act of peace."

"And what do I get out of it?"

"In money, you get one percent for doing the laundering. Over five years that might be a million dollars but this is your introduction to how things really work. You thought you understood with your little stock trading formulas. You didn't have a clue."

"Will this make me a player?"

"No."

"What does it take to become a player?"

"I don't know yet. I'm not big enough to be one."

Andrew was shocked. He knew Tim was big. His personal wealth was over a billion dollars.

Tim just smiled. "There's a whole world above me. It took me 30 years to get to get to become even just a trusted servant of the real decision makers. I'm giving you a chance to start with my connections and what I know now."

He didn't want to get into it but he didn't know how to get out of it. "Why are you giving this to me?"

He shrugged. "Because I don't have anyone else to give it to. God gave me four daughters. Agnes is a stay at home mother married to a pencil neck with thick glasses who owns one of those new age computer companies. She did the best of the bunch with him. They have a beautiful ranch just North of San Francisco and she has three sweet little girls but no sons. Barbara is a veterinarian who loves puppies and hates babies. Agatha is bent. And then there was Gemma, our baby. It would be thirty years before I know if her boys become murdering cheats like their father or fools like their mother and by then I'll be long dead and buried."

Andrew nodded. In Tim's world, obviously only a son could inherit. But would he trust Martin Charles to Juliet? No, he would not. "I have my own family problems right now."

"I know, but you can still do this. All you have to do is set up the dummy companies from here and then sign the contracts at the North Korean embassy in London."

Andrew pondered it. Martin Metals, Limited. That did have a very good ring to it. He could take a late flight to Heathrow, sign the papers and fly right back. If the flew out on a Thursday night he could be back at JFK late Friday night.


	61. Chocolate

**Chocolate**

It was right in front of her, that beautiful bird on the bottle label. She poured herself a generous glass full. Wild Turkey 101, her drink of choice. She looked at the golden goodness and sniffed sharp, sour acid before tossing it back and feeling that flame as it went down. As she contemplated the beautiful bird on the label her face felt warm and she had that marvelous light headed, relaxed feeling as she began to slow down.

Eighteen months down the drain, she realized. Why did she just do that? She had no idea why. She began to panic as she lowered her head in shame, wondering how she would face Andrew or Juliet or even her NA group.

As the whole world turned black around her she could feel her heart racing. This wasn't real, she told herself. She still had her self-respect and her sobriety. Nobody could take that away as long as she didn't throw it away.

As she woke, she had no idea what day it was, let alone what time it was. The days had all melted into one. Her universe had shrunk. There was her bed. She could now make it to the bathroom by herself. That was as far as she could go unaided. Doctors looked at her sometimes and with a lot of begging an orderly had taken her down to visit Juliet.

She took the rosary that the priest who gave her confession had left and began her prayers. She needed to pray. What day's mystery was it? She didn't even know but she prayed anyway. She needed to give to God all of her own will right now. She needed to be relieved of the burden of herself and to achieve that she had to think only of God's will and not hers. If she did what she wanted to do then she would sooner or later take that drink or those pills. She knew that for an absolute certainty. She begged God to lead her to do whatever God wanted her to do so that she could serve as God wanted her to serve.

She didn't know how long she had been praying when someone came in. It was an orderly. "Doctor Chan wants me to take you to her."

Bridget complied, taking her rosary with her. "What day is it?"

"Friday. Friday morning."

She swung around to step out of bed and the orderly helped her down and guided her into the wheelchair. Bridget had found her time in the hospital to be very humbling. She had to trust in strangers to do everything for her.

After an elevator trip and more time going up and down hallways she ended up waiting. She didn't know what she was waiting for but she had grown very used to the act of waiting. Was it still morning when the orderly took her to the next place to wait? She wasn't even sure it was still Friday. She ignored the medical infomercials on the TV and silently said her rosary to relax.

The next place she had to wait was quiet at least. Soon Dr. Chan came. "Good morning, Bridget. How do you feel today?"

"Alright."

"Anxious to get out of here?"

"Oh yes."

"Let's check out those eyes." First the doctor took off the eyepatches and checked with a flashlight. "Your eyes aren't used to the light so this might hurt just a little bit."

Doctors always had such a gift for understatement about everyone else's pain. Still Bridget did her best to hold still and endure it.

"Not bad. Now we're going to take a closer look and see how that eye is healing." Dr. Chan put her head in some strange machine and peered inside her eyes with it. It was sort of like those eye examination machines that the Department of Motor Vehicles used when checking you for your driver's license, just backwards. "The hyphema has healed cleanly."

When Dr. Chan turned off the machine and turned on the lights, Bridget looked around, closing one eye and then the other, holding her hand in front of her eye. "I can see but things don't look right."

"You will never see the same. Your eyes suffered major damage. But there will be further healing and your vision will slowly improve. I just don't know how much. Hopefully glasses will improve your vision."

"Glasses? What about contacts?"

"Maybe you can think of contacts in a year. Not when your eye shape is changing because of your pregnancy and not when that eye surface is still healing and is so delicate. Please be smart and stick with glasses for now."

She was going to look ugly. She knew it. Andrew would hate it and Juliet would be ashamed of her. She looked at how blurry the walls were around her. She wouldn't even be able to work without them. Then she thought again. She wasn't blind and she still had her baby and her sobriety. She would be grateful for all she had.

After Dr. Chan printed a long list of all the things to do and not to do, she sent Bridget to wait elsewhere for an eye exam. As she sat there, she read the list over and over. She couldn't lift anything more than fifteen pounds. She couldn't take care of children. How was she going to live unless she ignored the doctor's instructions and worked anyway? How was she going to take care of the baby?

She went to the bathroom while waiting and saw herself for the first time in a week and then sincerely wished she hadn't. She looked frighteningly bad. Her face was drawn with long blue scar lines and her long red hair roots brazenly showed the entire world that her duplication of Siobhan's blonde hair was merely a dye job.

She hated getting her hair dyed. She hated the peroxide and ammonia smell. She hated the way the dye made her scalp burn. She wondered whether the hair dye chemicals would hurt her baby and could just imagine how sick her stomach would feel.

Eventually she went in for the eye exam. It seemed like she spent an hour sitting in a chair and being asked "Does it look better this way or that way?" Truthfully, neither looked good.

Finally the eye doctor had a combination that was about as good as it would get. He wrote a prescription and she took it and thanked him. What difference did it make? She didn't have the money for glasses anyway.

No, she had kept the emergency reserve. It was the jewelry she was wearing when she was arrested in at the apartment. She'd kept it hidden at the deli, pretending she didn't have it so she could pay for the delivery. She didn't know how much it was worth but she needed those glasses. That way she could at least go back to work. Maybe she could use them to get a loan against her future wages. She was sure she wouldn't get nearly what they were worth in her current condition.

She went to her room and ate the last of her food. The clothes she had worn to the hospital had been thrown out days before. They had been caked in dried blood and smelled of death. Bernie had left a jumper and a blouse from the deli but she didn't have a dime and she didn't have her phone either. All she had was her lime green plastic rosary and her Narcotics Anonymous book and she hugged them tightly.

She signed forms and signed forms and signed more forms. She ate the last of the food she had. She asked and asked and finally managed to get a bus voucher.

She knew she would have to leave soon. The M9 bus would get her close to the Deli but dark clouds were rolling in and it looked like it would rain soon. She wouldn't be able to find the bus stop as bad as her eyes were if it started to storm. No, she would just have to chance it. Despite the problems, she couldn't leave without telling Juliet what was happening and where she would be. It took a long time of going from department to department and being very lost but eventually she managed to find out that Juliet had been discharged from inpatient the day before and was in the outpatient pediatric substance abuse section. When Bridget found it, Juliet was in group therapy so she sat and waited and waited. She even managed to even read for a little bit before her eyes grew too tired.

Finally Juliet ran out and cried "Mom" and hugged her close like a little girl. "You can see! Let's go home."

"I really don't know if I should," Bridget said quietly. "Andrew might not want me in the apartment."

"I want you. What's he going to do, throw out the mother of his child? And it's not like he's home anyway."

Bridget's eyes squinted. "Why?"

"He's someplace like Africa or Korea doing some business deal that's very important to him."

Bridget could see how Juliet's face seethed in resentment and pain. The girl wanted her father and she wanted him now. Someone had to be there for Juliet and right now Bridget knew it was going to be her. "Alright. Just one condition."

"What?"

"No scheming, no manipulation, no trying to get away with anything you know you shouldn't do. I've done it all and I'll know instantly."

As Timothy sat at the front desk of 626 Park Avenue, two familiar faces he hadn't seen in weeks came through the door. "Hello, Mrs. Martin, Juliet." He did his best not to stare but Mrs. Martin looked terrible. "I haven't seen you for weeks."

"I've been in the hospital, Timothy."

"Oh, I am sorry." He'd heard she had been attacked the night Kenny was killed. They hadn't said she'd been so badly injured. "Will you be wanting any extra help, Ma'am?"

She smiled. "I have Juliet. That is what family is for."

"Call if there is anything we can do for you." Tim handed Bridget a bundle. "Your mail. Days worth by now."

Juliet took it and put it in her purse. "Thank you, Timothy."

Upstairs, Bridget just sat on the living room couch, exhausted. She looked around the living room. She was home. She really was. She felt the couch and ran her foot through the rug.

"Are you alright," Juliet asked.

Bridget nodded. "It's just a week of sleep deprivation from the hospital. Every time I got to sleep it seemed like somebody came in to give me a blood test or do something."

"I know what you mean. I slept terribly."

"Are you still getting the night sweats?"

Juliet's eyes widened as she looked at Bridget as if to ask her how she knew.

"I was through detox several times. It's very common."

In between the bill statements, advertisements and magazines Juliet found one odd piece of mail. It was addressed to her and was a post card.

Bridget could see Juliet go stiff and white as she read the post card. Finally she took it from Juliet's trembling hands and with her good eye she managed to read it.

"Happy Birthday Juliet. I hope all is well and wonderful on your big sixteenth! I love you so much and am sorry for everything. I was insane. Please forgive me. Please write back. It is so lonely here. I live in a steel solitary confinement cell. It's like being an animal in a cage. Please forgive me. Please write. I have lost everything. I don't want to lose you, the most important thing to me in the world. Your mother."

Bridget sighed. Of all the wrong times! Juliet was hanging onto by a thread. She put it down and just held her and rocked her back and forth like a little child. "Chocolate," Bridget said. "This is definitely a time for chocolate."


	62. The Homecoming

**The Homecoming**

Andrew was exhausted and frustrated as he came home. Friday afternoon the Jews wouldn't sign the contract because it was too close to the Sabbath. Saturday they still wouldn't sign because it was the Sabbath and they wouldn't sign on Sunday because it was some Jewish holiday called Second Chance Passover or something like that. Then the North Koreans in a feat of senseless retaliation refused to even open the front gate of the embassy on Monday. They let them in on Tuesday but the North Koreans had him and the Israelis sit in a lobby and wait all day long with a giant statue of Kim Il Sung glowering down at him. There was literally nothing he could do all day long. The North Koreans had taken his telephone and his laptop as he entered the embassy. It was an eternity of boredom as he had to smile as he pretended to read their propaganda magazines with great enthusiasm.

Finally late on Wednesday afternoon the national honor of the socialist paradise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had been satisfied and everyone sat down together and signed. The Koreans had a fixed price with Księżniczka Piekarnia, LLC in Gdansk, Poland to deliver ore of a specific minimum assay to RMI's refinery in Steenkampskraal in South Africa, a fixed price for the fully refined metal between the refinery with Martin Metals, LLC and a fixed price for Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to take delivery of the refined metal at the Steenkampskraal refinery. Of course he was sole owner and the only employee of both Księżniczka Piekarnia, LLP and Martin Metals, LLP and as long as everyone kept their end of the bargain he stood to make a hundred thousand pounds a year for the next five years.

With the contracts in hand, he beat a hasty retreat back along the M4 to Heathrow Airport and took the next flight he could to JFK. By the time he left JFK and reached the apartment it was past 11:00 at night and he was exhausted. His body thought he was still in London and it was four in the morning.

He braced himself for the worst as he turned on the light but couldn't believe what he saw. The apartment was clean. Everything was at least as neat as he had left it. He thought he had to have been imagining it but it actually seemed to be even neater than when he left. Even the kitchen was spotless without one dirty dish in the sink.

Juliet had said in every phone call that she was going to the outpatient program and she was sober and that everything was fine. Obviously she was lying. She couldn't leave a kitchen that clean after six days of being alone if her life depended upon it. He went to her room to see if he could find any clues to where she had gone to but to his great shock she was lying in bed in her nightgown, listening to music and reading with a generous bowl of chocolate ice cream beside her. "Hi Dad," she said with a smile and a wave. "Did they finally sign?"

"Finally." He looked around for an explanation. Her room even seemed semi-clean. "Is everything alright?"

She nodded. "It's getting better. I still can't sleep but they say it will pass in a few weeks. How are you?"

"Tired. Jet lag."

"Then go to sleep. You will feel much better in the morning."

He retreated to his room. He tossed his bag in and turned on the light. There was a lump on his bed. It was a familiar sized lump, a Siobhan shaped lump. He looked again and it was still there. It had been softly snoring but now seemed to be stirring.

He turned out the light and went back to Juliet's room. "You didn't tell me she was here," he said angrily.

"You weren't here to ask."

Anger flashed in his eyes. "You didn't have the right."

"I needed someone and she was there for me when I needed it the most and you weren't."

"It's easy for her. She doesn't have to make a living."

"Did you really need the money? Were there bills you couldn't pay? Did you really need this new venture more than I needed you when I was just coming out of the hospital?"

"Somebody has to pay for the hospital bills."

That answer didn't faze Juliet. "You have insurance and she is the only reason I was able to stay dry. My whole world crashed down on me on Friday and you didn't know or even care anything about it. She's the one who held me when I cried and kept me here and busy and not going out and getting all lit up so I could forget. She's the one who took me to AA meetings to help me begin to understand. She's the one who stayed up with me when I couldn't sleep." She sat up in bed and took something from her night stand and held it.

He sat down in the chair besides her bed as he searched for some way to communicate to her that she needed to be rational about what had happened. "Look, I do care and I am sorry I was delayed. It was supposed to be just an overnight, no worse than one bad day at the office. But you're going to have to learn to control yourself when I am not here. You can't just let your world crash in on itself."

Juliet handed him the post card from Catherine and handed it to him. "This came in the mail Friday night. How do you think it made me feel?"

He read Catherine's post card and then read it again. "I don't understand. She wished you happy birthday."

Juliet held her hands up in utter frustration. "Grr! Dad, I don't know what's wrong with you but you just don't get it."

He read it again. The post card seemed a little desperate and self-seeking but not anything worth going out and get drunk over. "Be logical and see it from the perspective of others."

"Be human and listen to how I felt. I'm not your data analyzing computers. I am a person!"

He hated when she started talking about feelings. He never knew what to say so he quickly changed the subject. "Juliet, I'm not trying to force her out into the snow. She has a job and a place to live."

"She can't work. I read the doctor's discharge note. She's half blind and pregnant with your baby. She has no place to go. You can't turn her out. Besides, she loves you."

He sat in her chair, feeling crushed. He believed that she loved him. He truthfully and completely did. Yet that didn't begin to answer the question of what he felt. After Catherine and Siobhan, would he ever let himself feel anything again? What did he want? As he sat there, he knew that was the one thing he did know. He wanted what was best for Juliet, and he had to admit that right now having a responsible adult living at home to look after her night and day was quite logical. He had always put his career ahead of his family. He admitted it to himself. It wasn't pretty but it was true. At least he wouldn't put his pride before his daughter. "Alright, for now she stays."

Juliet hugged him. "Thank you, Daddy."

Dazed and exhausted, Andrew hugged her back. He just couldn't escape the feeling that since she was in the apartment now she wouldn't ever be leaving.


	63. I'm Sorry

**I'm Sorry**

He woke up to an almost familiar face in Siobhan's bathrobe lying in bed. "Hi there," she said smiling at him. Yet she was smiling at him through a set of glasses.

He'd been there at the hospital. He had expected some marks on her face from the bandages, just not so many or so long. He was there when they took her in for eye surgery and when she came out. Yet somehow he hadn't pictured her wearing milk bottles in tortoise shell cat's eye glasses.

He managed to smile back as he wondered whether he should have slept on the couch. "Hi." He struggled to change the subject and the smell of fish provided the answer. "My, something smells good. Let's go out and see what it is."

Bridget pointed to the end table. "Juliet made breakfast in bed for you, the whole English breakfast." She uncovered it. "Eggs, kippers, fried tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, toast, a pot of Irish breakfast tea for you and orange juice for me."

"It sounds good."

"She wanted to surprise you. She's been planning this for days."

"I'll bet she has," Andrew said, wondering what other surprises Juliet had been planning. Then he saw the clock. It was already past 8:00 AM. "Oh my, I've got to go."

Bridget took his arm. "You've been away for days. You needed your sleep. You deserve to spend time with your family and come in late."

"It does look good but work awaits."

"Juliet has been practicing since Saturday to make it right. You have to eat it or you'll really disappoint her."

He sighed. Woman's logic wins again. He took a plate and tucked in, although somehow he would have been more comfortable eating at the table. "This is good." And it really was.

After they were through and his tea was drunk and the breakfast trays were cleared away, Bridget asked him "Would you like to feel your son?"

"You can feel him?"

She nodded. "At first I thought it was gas, but then it got stronger. Now it feels like I have a big goldfish swimming inside of me."

She took his hand and put inside her robe just below her belly button where her waist had grown noticeably wider. He couldn't feel the baby moving but she definitely felt pregnant. Then she gently guided his hand down and he felt that she wasn't wearing underwear. He looked up but she smiled again.

He was desperately trying to find a better reason not to than his fears of slipping into another relationship. "What about the safety of the baby."

"I checked. The March of Dimes and Baby Zone both say it's perfectly safe and even doctor recommended right up until my water breaks. Besides it's not like I'm going to get pregnant." She hung her arms around his neck and looked at him with that "Oh please" puppy dog look. "It's been just as long for me as it has been for you and I've been going nuts just dreaming of you."

"What about the whole premarital sex sin thing?"

"I'll confess … later. Right now, I want and I need you."

He tried to think of some other reason but he felt sillier and sillier. It wasn't like he hadn't bedded both Siobhan and Catherine before marriage. It wasn't like they were the only ones he'd had in his life. Not by a long measure. It had been almost a month and as she turned off the lights any reason he could think of for not participating seemed sillier and sillier.

Afterwards, as she lay there smiling and sleepy, he suddenly felt absolutely famished again. As he polished off every last bite left on the breakfast he pulled down the covers to look at those round Celtic breasts he had been dreaming of. He found the breasts and they were bigger and more beautiful than ever but he also found some things that he hadn't been expecting. The biggest surprise was the thing on her shoulder. "What's this," he said, tapping it with his finger.

"Tattoo," she said, happily drifting away. "From Tim."

"Arbogast? Why would he do that?"

"To tell us apart I think." With that she drifted off into a deep sleep, softly snoring again.

He watched her for a moment, silently smiling and clutching the blanket. That was one very consistent difference between Siobhan and Bridget. When he had sex with Siobhan, she was always asking him for something afterwards but all Bridget would do is smile, hold him close and begin to snore.

He cleaned up and shaved for work. The bathroom was cleaned and polished. The clothes closet was a marvel to behold. All his suits had been cleaned. All his shirts were perfectly laundered, pressed and starched and all his shoes were spit and polish shined and on the tree. Even the ties looked to be ironed. He had to admit he did like that neatness and order.

He looked again at the tattoo as he put his tie on, thinking exactly what his mother would say about it. He knew exactly what his Mum would say if he or Margaret ever came home with one. She'd have her Bible out and would be reciting chapter and verse. He could hear her reading it now. First Corinthians, chapter six, verses 19 and 20. "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." She'd be yelling at him that he had just put graffiti on God's temple.

Father had a more eloquent quote he used about tattoos. "A beautiful woman with a tattoo is like a glass of sparkling, fabulously expensive champagne laced with piss."

He grabbed his briefcase and went to the kitchen to pack a lunch. Juliet was there, eating yoghurt and listening to music. She even took her headphones out when he came in. "Thank you very much for the breakfast."

"You liked it?"

He nodded. "It was good. How are you doing this morning?"

"I still can't sleep.

He went through the fridge and grabbed some apples, carrots and bread for lunch. "Did you see the tattoo?"

Juliet nodded. "Friday night she showed it to me."

"Well don't get any ideas from it."

"Dad it's not a tramp stamp."

He laughed. "Tramp stamp? I love that one!" Criminals, prostitutes, bikers and sailors were the ones who wore tattoos when he was growing up.

Juliet's eyes glared at him with the ferocity of a wildcat. "That tat is her pledge to go clean forever. It's the day she went clean and the Narcotics Anonymous symbol. She showed it to me as she was holding me down from going out and getting drunk, holding me down when you couldn't even care enough about me to be here."

He knew Juliet would be making him pay for that trip for years to come. He'd apologized already and she obviously had no interest in forgiving him and forgetting. "You are not getting any ideas. Do you understand, young lady? Tattoos still carry a message and not a very good one."

"Daddy, you're not even trying to understand. It has to do with reclaiming her body and her soul from the cravings and obsessions of alcohol and drugs."

"They still look cheap."

"They're all the fashion. Look at Lady Gaga."

"The one who wears the penis shoes?"

"Dad!"

"Fashion is something you can take off. If you buy a skirt because it's fashionable and you decide the next day you just hate it you can take it off and put on another one. You can't do that with a tattoo."

"That's why she got it. Her sobriety isn't something she's going to take off."

"It still doesn't look professional. Respectable businesses just won't hire people with a tattoo that shows. And you can get nasty diseases."

"Only if I get my friends to ink me instead of you taking me to a licensed tattoo parlor."

"Don't you dare! And as your sole custodial parent you can forget me taking you."

"And I thought you wanted me to get sober. I guess I was wrong."

He was taken aback. "That's rubbish. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Bridget got hers after a year of being clean. I haven't been completely clean for a month straight since … I was eleven. No, ten."

His jaw dropped in shock and shame. "How?"

"Oh it started at the knee of my very own and dear old Mommy Catherine. She had me mix her drinks after you and Siobhan got married. She said she had a deserved to drink and of course she couldn't drink alone."

"Even living here?"

She gave him a wry smile. "Do you really think the time I smashed that car and the time I painted on that picture were the only times I got wasted here?"

He felt sick to his stomach. Why hadn't he known? Why hadn't he found out sooner? Then he had to admit to himself that he did know sooner. Deep in his heart he had known something was wrong. Siobhan had warned him several times this school year that something was wrong with Juliet, yet he had ignored it. "I'm sorry," he said with all sincerity. "Dear God, I'm sorry."

"But you might be late to work if you think about it. Off to work now. Time to go now, time to go, go, go."

He slinked out, the contract in his briefcase suddenly feeling like a surrender rather than a victory.

The sound of children laughing was the first thing Andrew heard when he got off the elevator. It wasn't coming from Tim's office. It was coming from the other direction, by the break room. He peered in. Some Hispanic looking woman was playing with the two boys as a couple of the graphic artists watched.

He put copies of the signed contracts on Tim's desk. Tim looked up from what he was reading, reviewed it and put it in a stack for Claudine to file and returned to his reading. Andrew knew he should silently go but he couldn't. Finally Tim looked up at him and Andrew could keep the question inside no longer. "Why did you do it?"

Tim sat back and took his reading glasses off. "Do what?"

"Give her that tattoo?"

"I'm sorry but it's not something you could understand."

"What do you mean I couldn't understand why you gave her a tramp stamp?"

Tim shook his head. "You've always had it soft and easy. You never had to make a hard decision. Come back when you have."

"I've had to work hard to get to my goals and I certainly have had my fill of tough times this year."

Tim laughed. "Oh man. That is a good one. Maybe you got upset when you found out about other people's choices but I don't think you've made one really hard choice in your life. Do I go to Oxford or do I go to Cambridge? Do I buy the Cadillac or the Lincoln? Hard is when it hurts no matter what you do. Hard is when your very soul is haunted for the rest of your life and beyond." He rolled up his sleeve and showed him a tattoo on his upper arm. "There were 38 men in my platoon on one December morning. We were second platoon. Third platoon was also with us. We were near the rice paddies somewhere between Da Nang and Chu Lai. You go to the villages and they all smile but there are no young men. We know that means it's a VC village and they're up in the hills just waiting to get us but I was just a shave tail second lieutenant so General Westmorland and the President weren't listening to me. Fox Company had come under hard attack and we were air lifted in to give aid but Charlie hit us hard with machine gun fire on our right flanks. A dozen men lay dead including the company commander, the other second lieutenant, the radio man and our doc. I'm the senior surviving officer. Most of the survivors were wounded, myself included. I have a bunch of terrified boys and a lot of them are bleeding bad. I have to decide how to keep them together and rally their courage. I have to decide how we are going to take out those guns and who is going to do it. I have to decide how we defend ourselves when wave after wave of VC come sneaking up on us that night. Finally, finally the choppers come down. It's up to me to decide who gets on the medevac and when. Do I evac the ones that are hurt worst? Do I evac the ones that are most likely to survive all the way to the battalion aid station? Do I evac my best friend? He's bleeding bad too but others need it more. No matter what I decide, men are going to die because of me."

Andrew stood there, thinking. He wanted to come back with an answer but he had none. He thought of last night and this morning with Juliet and didn't feel at all satisfied.

Tim put his glasses back on. "You know what you need to do. Tell me tomorrow if you had the balls to do it."

He silently went to his office and as he sat and stared at the thirteen official and finalized death certificates for Siobhan that Claudine had ordered he thought of the real choices he had made in life. He could think of two. One had been very wrong – the decision to work a Ponzi scheme rather than admit that Martin Charles had failed and to fold the company and that moment when he dove in front of the gunman to save Siobhan. Saving his "wife" had been the right choice, wasn't it? He could have died, but he was quite sure he loved his wife then.

He shook his head. It wasn't a decision. It was more of an emotional reaction. He saw the gun, he dove. There was no time to decide. Did that mean the only tough choice he deliberately and consciously had made in his entire life was illegal and wrong and nearly had put him in jail?

He searched and searched for another decision. Marrying either Siobhan or Catherine hadn't really been a decision. It just sort of happened to him just as their leaving him had. Catherine had just floated into her bottle as Siobhan latched her hooks into him and then when Siobhan was through with him she managed to disappear without him even knowing it. Olivia had come to him about starting the firm. Not even his major in college was really his choice. He had always been fascinated with money so everyone else had just assumed that he would go into economics.

After stirring himself sufficiently from his funk to return home, he found Bridget and Juliet together in the kitchen finishing up the dinner preparations. "Hi Honey," Bridget said.

"Hi. Would you mind terribly if I had a few words with Juliet in private before dinner?"

"I'll take a little nap then. You two get me when dinner is served."

After the bedroom door closed, Juliet quietly began putting out the plates. She wasn't making it any easier for him. Andrew swallowed hard and prepared himself. He would try to use words from her world. "Juliet, I don't think last night or this morning was me at my best."

"No dah."

"This has all been very difficult for me.

"I don't understand."

"My feelings … are mixed up now. " It wasn't easy for him but he had actually managed to use the F word.

"I get that but I don't understand why. Things now are like you thought they were. You have a woman you love who loves you in your bedroom. She's the same woman who walked out that door with Catherine holding a gun on her expecting that she would die so you and I would live. She's the same woman you lived with for seven months."

He shook his head. "But that's just it. She isn't."

"Of course she is."

"She's not the woman I thought I was living with. I should have known better when I found out Siobhan had a twin." He shook his head and then held it in his hands. "Everything is just a confusing mess."

"Hey, Dad, just relax. Don't try to control everything. Just go with the flow. It will all work out."

"Maybe. Look about your tattoo."

"Yes."

"I googled tattoos for minors in the cab. I can't give permission for you to get a tattoo in New York. You have to be 18."

"I know. We'll have to go to New Jersey."

Dinner was simply dreadful, a tofu curry with eggplant and spinach over brown rice and an iceberg lettuce salad with vinegar and oil. Andrew tried very hard to put on a good face but it was simply dreadful.

"Juliet planned the whole meal," Bridget said, picking at the tofu.

"I tried to make something heart healthy. There's no added salt and almost no fat."

He could tell by the taste. "Thank you."

"I don't want you getting a heart attack like Uncle Dylan."

Andrew nodded. Uncle Dylan was his father's older brother, weighed 30 stone and smoked two packs a day. It was no wonder that his heart was giving out.

After dinner, Juliet began to clear the table but Bridget said "I'll take care of that."

"No trouble."

"You have that youth AA meeting."

Andrew was surprised. "A youth AA meeting?"

Bridget nodded. "It's called 'Never a legal drink.' They hold it at a Lutheran Church in Chelsea. It will be good for her to learn from other alcoholics her age. And I think Andrew and I need to talk."

"Yes," Andrew said. "Don't forget your coat. It's windy out."

After Juliet was in the elevator and on the way downstairs, Bridget said "Let me fix you something to eat."

"Just a sandwich."

She took the tofu curry and brown rice away. "I'm tossing half in the garbage disposal but leaving some. That way Juliet will think we ate more and didn't totally hate it."

"Is that totally honest?"

"Well I am not actually saying that we ate it." She searched through the refrigerator. "How does chicken salad on Kaiser rolls sound?"

"Like a big improvement."

In a few minutes, she put in front of him the rolls and sandwich fixings. He stared at it. "That's too much for me."

"I figured one for you," Bridget said taking a roll and piling avocado, tomatoes and lettuce on it before adding the chicken spread. "The rest are for me."

He dug in. "How come she made such a great breakfast and that junk for dinner?"

"I planned the breakfast. She wanted to do dinner all on her own." Bridget took a bite. "That brings me to the problem I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" So the whole perfect morning had been Bridget's idea. He would remember that.

"Juliet. She is playing to be top dog here. She always did like all teenagers do but she is getting much worse now. She is trying to be the parent to the both of us."

"You noticed it too?"

Bridget nodded. "She's playing the both of us against each other and that is a path to destruction. You need to firmly establish that you are the head of this family."

He nodded, wondering if he was as awful as she had made him feel.

She finished a sandwich and put her hand on his. "I'm sorry about the way I lied to you by pretending to be Siobhan. I had planned on telling you the night before over dinner and then I was going to tell you that night. I even knew just what I was going to say but things didn't work out right. Then while I was in the hospital I realized something."

"What?"

"That I have known you for about eight months but you've only known me for a few weeks."

He smiled. "Yes!"

"I'm not Siobhan. I'm not even the pretend Siobhan you knew. I'm someone else with my own good and bad. But you don't know me and after the way Siobhan and I both lied to you I'm sure you don't trust me."

He looked deep into her eyes. He didn't want to say it but it was the absolute truth. He didn't know who to trust. He didn't know if he had it in him to ever be able to trust anyone. But at least she understood that.

She began a second sandwich. "I know you didn't exactly invite me back here. She insisted on it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you while you were still in London. I can give excuses but I was just so happy to be here."

"It was a surprise but from what she said it was probably for the best for her that you were here."

"For Juliet's sake I need you to trust me, at least more than you trust her. She's making too many decisions. We need to work together as a team and I need to know that if it's a course of action we've agreed on that you'll back me up."

Everyone had their own angle and here was the pitch. What was it going to be for? "I'm listening."

"She's controlling what happens because she controls the purse strings. She chooses what we buy at the market. She chooses where she goes and how she goes there. That's not good for her or for you. I ran the house when I was Siobhan. I can help her a lot more if you trust me just enough to run the house now."

"That dinner wasn't a setup to pitch this?"

Bridget shook her head as she finished her second sandwich. "All her idea and I tried to talk her out of it. Would you like anything else?"

"A cup of tea, please."

"Just a moment, Honey." She took away the tray and soon she popped back with his tea and two bananas. "I can keep a budget and review the expenses and receipts with you," she said as she started on a banana. "You'll know where every dollar goes."

He thought about it as he sipped his tea. "You lied to me but you never stole from me or cheated me. Juliet, Siobhan, Olivia and Catherine all did. What else?"

"She finishes the outpatient program Friday of next week. She needs something to fill her time and she needs to get back to school. She hasn't done any school work since you withdrew her last month."

"Great." He wasn't at all surprised but he was disappointed.

"She also lost her computer and she wants you to buy her a $3,000 Macintosh notebook to replace it."

"What do you think?"

"I think it's a very bad idea. It's rewarding her with a fancy new computer for losing the old one and she is going to do the same thing with it she did before with the other one and that's Facebook to her friends."

"She needs a computer for her on line high school classes."

"She does but not a $3,000 one and not one she can hide away in her room with or go out and lose again and not one she can waste her time playing with."

He smiled. "Why didn't you talk like this before?"

"I tried to help but she hated Siobhan so much I had to choose my battles to have her trust me at all. That and I was rather preoccupied with trying to stay alive at the time."

As they laid out a course of action, he sipped his tea and pondered the decisions he had just made and counted how many lives he was changing.


	64. Mother's Day

**Mother's Day**

Bridget had her pants pulled down and was smeared up with KY Jelly as a strange man probed her. She was at the office of an obstetrician that Greer had recommended, Dr. Abraham Saperstein. He had curly snow for hair and a grey beard and mustache that would be compared to Santa Claus if he weren't Jewish. He looked at her through half glasses with pale grey blue eyes. The sonogram displayed the baby in three dimensions and in astonishing detail. This wasn't Bellevue or a free clinic. "Everything looks fine," he said. "Just as it should be. You appear to be fourteen or fifteen weeks along but as sketchy as your medical history is I can't be sure."

"There was a lot going on then and I have been confused but thinking back on it I am pretty sure my period was about the first or second of February." She smiled, remembering joking to Juliet after that it was PMS that gave her the anger and courage to deck Mr. Carpenter.

"Don't worry about your memory. It's just hormones and it will pass." He keyed in the date on a computer in the exam room. "That works out just about right. Figure for oh the second week in November as a due date."

"The free clinic said Thanksgiving."

"The free clinic said Thanksgiving. The free clinic said this and that. Who are you going to trust, me or some schmuck in a free clinic?"

She looked at perfect image and compared it to the sketchy black and white she had gotten at the free clinic. For the moment, she would trust him.

"I want you back in two weeks for a blood test."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"It's a routine check on proteins and hormones. It will help with making sure everything is fine and in establishing the due date. Are you afraid of needles?"

"A little …" Truthfully it was more than a little. Her phobia of needles was the reason she had never started IV drug use.

"Our blood tech is very gentle and very used to nervous mothers. You'll be fine."

She sighed, knowing she would have to endure it. "What about pregnancy vitamins?"

"Food is your best source of vitamins, real fresh food. Christine is the nutritionist associated with our practice. She'll be giving you information and ask you to log everything you eat on the computer and make sure you are getting just the right amount of everything. You also are going to need to log your weight each week."

Bridget winced visibly. "Great."

"You don't have a computer?"

"It's my eyes. I can't read it."

"You really need to be doing this. It's for your baby."

Siobhan didn't do all that with Sean, she thought. No, but Siobhan had smoked throughout the pregnancy. She would not whine, she would not complain. She would do what was needed. She had been praying to have her baby be healthy and safe and to know what she must do to make it happen. She would accept this as just something else to do and trust that God would provide a way.

Juliet was not a happy camper that evening over dinner. "But it's a Windows computer," Juliet said as she dipped one of the oversized "Chips" French Fries in catsup and ate it. "And it's two years old."

Bridget shrugged. "It still works fine. It has everything you need for your school work."

"But it's not a Mac and I can't take it anyplace. It's stuck here."

Andrew put some more of the fish and chips on his plate and then sprinkled the chips with vinegar. "If you had surrendered your notebook to a mugger, I would tell you that you had done just the right thing and then order you an identical Macintosh notebook. I wouldn't be pleased on the loss of the computer but I'd be glad that you had the common sense to know that your well being is worth far more than any property. Unfortunately that isn't the case. You were doing something you knew you shouldn't be doing when you not only lost your computer but you almost lost your life."

"But that's not fair! I didn't mean to lose it."

"It is not only fair, it's very generous," Andrew said, eating his fish. "I'm not making you buy me a replacement for the very good computer you lost. I'm even providing you with a computer and internet access. You just aren't being rewarded for doing something you shouldn't have and almost getting killed doing it." He polished his fish off and took some more. "This is good."

"Thank you," Bridget said with a smile.

Juliet wasn't smiling. "But it's Siobhan's creepy old desktop."

Bridget took some of the curry and chips. "But Siobhan's used everything here. This table, these plates."

"It's not just that. Desktops are so lame. Everyone has an iPad now."

Andrew shook his head. "You use the right tool for the job. An iPad just isn't up to the sort of real work you need to do to pass your classes. That's a fact."

"Don't you care about me?"

"Of course your father does," Bridget said with an outraged tone in her voice, sopping up the curry with the chips. "He loves you and only wants to do what is best."

"But he doesn't understand or care how it really is. And you don't either. If you really cared about Dad you wouldn't be serving him so much fried food."

Bridget chuckled. "You fried dinner for him yesterday. But I do care so nothing in this dinner was fried. Actually it's a far more balanced and healthy meal than what you cooked yesterday."

Juliet was shocked. "I don't believe it."

Bridget shrugged. "I'll show you the recipes and nutritional breakdowns I printed on your computer this morning."

"If I have that computer, what would you use?"

"We'll just share for now."

"You'll be coming in my room any time you want to print a recipe?"

Andrew looked at her. "Actually I figured I'd simply put the computer in the living room. That will give the both of you convenient access."

Juliet's eyes grew wide with horror. "You mean I'd have to use it with you watching?"

"What's the problem with that? Is there anything you need to hide?"

"It's not hiding. It's privacy."

"Privacy shouldn't be a problem." Andrew smiled. "I already blocked access to anything like Facebook or Twitter or any of that social networking nonsense."

Juliet's mouth opened in astonishment. "You can't."

He nibbled on a chip. "It wasn't difficult."

"That's just the cruelest thing I've ever heard of." At that, Juliet dropped her French Fries, ran into her room and slammed the door.

"Wait," Andrew said, standing up. "Come back, Juliet."

Bridget took his hand. "Don't bother going after her."

"But ..."

"Trust me. She ran away because she wants you to run after her and then give her what she wants so she'll act happy. She wants you to keep apologizing forever."

Andrew slumped back in his chair, shaking his head. "I am so tired of all these games."

"Welcome to the joys of parenthood."

"Why can't she just say what she means?"

"But then you might understand her."

He had listened to what Bridget had told him at dinner but he couldn't accept it. He thought about it. He tried to just let it wait, but he could not. Wondering if he was a glutton for punishment, he knocked on her door. There was no answer from inside. He knocked again and again there was no reply. The third time he knocked and there was no answer he went inside.

Juliet was lying on her bed, earbuds in her ears. She looked up with one eye and then jammed her head into her pillows, hiding Andrew from her view.

"Don't you have the decency to look up at me when we talk?"

She turned her head slightly and opened one eye. "There."

He sat. "I know you don't understand why I don't buy you the computer, but I wanted to at least explain that the reason I am not giving you the computer isn't about the money."

Juliet gave a half smile. "Dad, be real. You judge everything by money."

"I am sure that's what you think. That's why I will burn $3,000 in front of you."

"Sure you will."

He pulled out Siobhan's lighter and the thirty 100 dollar bills, counted the money and as Juliet's eyes grew wide he set the money on fire. Juliet recoiled back in horror. Long seconds later the smoke detector went off and as the paper money burned down he put it in her dried out ice cream bowl and watched the bills burn away. Bridget looked in to see why the alarm was going off and then closed the door leaving them alone again. "You didn't earn it," Andrew said. "Earn it and we will buy it."

"You want me to get a job so I can get my computer?"

"No. Earn it by going clean for one year."

"Oh yeah, you send me off to an AA meeting with my dollar, figuring that will cure me, like all the other parents who are ashamed of their teen-age alcoholic."

"I'm trying. I want to be a good father. You tell me what we need to do so you will live clean."

"You know what happened last night? Some creep who looked at least 25 hit on me so I went outside to the bush they said to leave your drugs under if you're bringing them and found some benzos."

All the words Juliet was using that he never learned and never wanted to learn. He could only guess, and it made his skin crawl. "Benzos?"

"God, you don't know anything."

He shook his head. "You didn't come with an owner's manual."

"Pills, like Mommy Dearest's valiums."

"Dear God. Why would you do that?"

She shrugged. "I like what they do for me."

He felt like his heart was being shredded. "I just want to help. I just want you to have a happy, healthy life."

She laughed. "Don't you think you're about sixteen years too late?"

"I was a fool. I'm sorry."

"You've been a fool for the last sixteen years?"

"No, I've been a fool for the last 37 years. I can't change the past. All I can do is change the future."

"And you expect me suddenly to trust you? You left me alone with her. Do you know how many times I was in the car in terror as she was driving absolutely plowed with a suspended license?"

"I'm sorry. I thought Siobhan and I would get custody with her record. But I couldn't even get joint custody until Catherine had her third DUI and was a felon." He held his hands up to heaven. "The mother can get away with anything but the father's only right is to give money."

"You should have done something. If you really wanted to you could have moved there and then when you did get me you stuck me in that boarding school."

"I'm sorry. That was a mistake and I'm really sorry."

"Everything was a mistake. Everything was not what you intended to happen and you're sorry for everything. Well I'm sorry but I don't care that you're sorry. Sorry just doesn't cut it."

"So that's why you took the pills you found under the bush?"

She thought for a minute, nodding. "Yeah. I guess."

"Didn't you know how dangerous that was?"

She thought for a moment. "Yes I did."

His mouth gaped open in astonishment. He wanted to understand but he just couldn't. It didn't make sense, but neither had Catherine's madness. He wanted to get her to stop but how could he argue with Juliet's insanity when he couldn't even begin to fathom it. "Why," he finally said. "Why did you do it?"

He got no answer from her that night. He could see her turn off like a light. She just seemed to fade away and be gone.

He walked out, leaving the ice cream bowl behind.

Bridget was in her office typing on the computer that would soon be Juliet's. There was definitely a bit of belly showing under those clothes. If his mood had been better he would have enjoyed it. Instead he sat, dazed. She turned away from the computer and hugged him. Eventually Andrew recovered enough to say "Where did my sweet little Juliet go?"

"She's in there, buried somewhere."

He shook his head in worry and exhaustion. "She said she went looking for pills at the AA meeting under a bush and when she found them she took them."

"Great." She began massaging the mass of steel cables at the back of his neck.

"What do we do?"

"If she's going to start scoring I'll have to take her to meetings."

"How long can we keep her away from it?"

"Not long. She'll find it."

He sighed. "Should we try to send her back to rehab?"

Bridget shook her head. "No. What does she want? She wants to get away from parental authority. She wants to not do any school work or house work. She wants something to get her stoned and boys. What will she get in rehab? She's away from home . She's away from work. They hand out plenty of drugs and half the people there are boys. She may be trying to get you to send her to rehab."

"How could she be so twisted as to think something like that?" Then he looked at Bridget's sad smile and said "Don't bother answering."

Saturday morning, Andrew woke when Bridget was still asleep. Her snoring seemed to be getting worse than it ever was. He wouldn't be sleeping any more with the racket going on. He put on his bathrobe and went into the kitchen. Juliet was there, hunched over a sandwich like a bird of prey over a corpse. "Hi," he said.

She glared back silently.

"Can I ask you something?"

"What," she said angrily. "I can't eat here now?"

"No," he said, taken aback by her anger. She was blaming him for things he hadn't done or said. "I was just going to ask if you were still using that fan in your room."

"Why?"

"I wanted to use it to cover up Bridget's snoring so I can sleep."

"I don't have it anymore."

It seemed rather odd to him but it wasn't worth arguing with. There was a hardware store on 23rd Street by Gemma and Buttface's house that was on the way to work.

He thought about going to work. He really considered it, but couldn't quite come up with a reason why. He needed to spend some time on a presentation he would make next week and he really should get up to date with the Oxford Business Group reports in several key regions but he could do that anytime and anywhere. Instead he took a large cookie sheet and assembled breakfast for two on it.

When she had been Siobhan, Saturday mornings had been their time. They would both be relaxed and awake. Being a male animal, he wanted to continue the tradition. Fortunately she seemed quite eager to continue it as well.

Afterwards as they lay naked together and ate their yoghurt and toast, Andrew looked at her body. She really did have that pregnant look. It was starting to sink in. It wasn't just that she had the distinct beginnings of a belly and that her two mounds were rapidly rising peaks. She had the diaper rash look on her fair Irish cheeks and that dark line going from above her belly button area going straight on down to the goodies zone. And speaking of her goodies zone, it definitely looked bigger. Fortunately she was taking it all in her stride and didn't let some strange notion of unattractiveness get into her head. Catherine had gone completely weird on him. "You look pregnant," he finally said.

"I feel pregnant."

He had been excited when Catherine had become pregnant. He wanted to do with her and their child all the things his parents never did with him. How his dreams had been crushed by Catherine. She didn't even stay dry for the pregnancy. He tried to keep her off the sauce but he kept finding scotch bottles hidden around the house.

Was that the reason Juliet was a lush? Should he have checked Catherine into rehab until she delivered? Was everything his fault for failing to make a decision then?

"What's wrong," Bridget finally said, seeing the darkness on his face.

"Nothing. Just thinking of Catherine."

"I'm not Catherine," she said firmly. "Things will be different this time."

He didn't want to think of Catherine. It hurt far, far too much. He managed to flush the past out of his head. He searched for something else and remembered an advertisement he had seen on the way home. "Mother's Day is tomorrow and I haven't gotten you anything yet."

"The greatest gift you could give me is just to be here with you and Juliet."

That was definitely not something Siobhan would say. She'd have her shopping list all prepared. "Still, I should get you something."

She knew what she wanted but she didn't know the word for it. "It's the TV set thing." She held up her hands trying to make the right size and shape.

"The TV in the den or the bedroom?"

"Not that. I don't want to watch any stupid soap operas! It's the one on the computer."

"They're called a computer monitor."

She would remember the word. Andrew attached great meaning to using the right words. "It used to be big enough but now it's really hard to read."

"You want a bigger one?"

She nodded. "But I can manage."

He laughed. "It's nothing. They certainly are cheap enough."

"I got you a gift too."

"You already gave me one this morning."

She smiled. "I thought it was your gift to me. But this one is for Juliet too."

"Oh?"

"Give me just a few minutes, alright?"

He went to wash up. When he was done she was gone. He went out and found her in the hall by the door. "Here it is, Honey," she said, pointing to the frame that had once held the giant picture of Siobhan, only now there was a single 5x7 of a policeman in a giant collage photo frame that had room for dozens of pictures.

"What is it," Andrew said, puzzled. "And who is he?"

"It's the past, the present and the future. It's whatever we want it to be. That is my father," she said with a smile. She gave him a small pile of photo albums, the few she was able to find. "Who else should we make a part of our past?"

He looked at the beefy faced man in a dark blue uniform standing in front of the American flag, seeing something of the determination of her eyes. Bridget was proud of him. He died in the line of duty, a hero. Why had Siobhan never showed him that picture? Why had she hardly even spoken of him?

That evening as Bridget went out for Confession and Juliet tried out the new monitor he got for Bridget, he tried to put together a dinner and flip through the albums to decide what memories he wanted to let into his life sat and went through the pictures. Bridget had put sticky notes by several of the pictures with arrows pointing to the ones she suggested adding to the wall. Some were treasures, like Juliet sitting naked on the potty when she was perhaps two years old pretending to be reading a novel just like her mother did. Others were but the dimmest of memories, like him as a little boy standing with Margaret and their mother on the beach by Portmeirion in Penrhyndeudraeth.

He looked at one of him, Catherine and Juliet at Juliet's first birthday. They looked so smiling and normal and happy, like they would be in love forever. What had made Catherine sell her soul to the devil in the bottle? "What do you think of this picture," he called to Juliet.

"I hate this monitor," she called back.

"Why? It's a graphic artist's monitor with 2560 by 1600 resolution and an IPS display. I think she's going to love it."

"It's so HUGE. It's almost as big as the TV set."

"That's why I got it for her."

"But you can read it across the room."

"Come, look at the albums." He went back to broiling cooking steaks and baking potatoes.

Defeated, Juliet flipped through the albums until she abruptly stopped on one. "You should burn this."

"What?"

"It's you and Siobhan's wedding album." She flipped through it. "The wrath of Bridezilla. Everything so perfectly like princess for a day that it's just gross."

"We almost ended up on that show, Bridezillas."

"Seriously?"

Andrew nodded. "During their first season, they were going to call it Manhattan Brides. But it didn't seem like enough good publicity to be worth the pain and the risk. One bride later sued them over the way she was portrayed."

Juliet stopped on one page, the one in the entire album that had a sticky note arrow. It was a simple picture of Siobhan and Andrew holding hands. All of the pomp, glory and ceremony was out of the picture. It was just a man and a woman together seemingly happy together. She stopped and looked and looked at Siobhan's eyes. In this one picture, they almost appeared soft and kind.

Why did Bridget choose this one picture? Was it her wish to have been the bride in the picture? Was it a sign of what she wanted to be? Was it because Siobhan was a part of their past as much as Catherine was and they needed to accept those dark chapters?


	65. Fair Enough

**Fair Enough**

He hated waiting for doctors. He'd unfortunately had to do it many times in his life. Unfortunately he was doing it again.

The pains came again in his left leg as he sat in the waiting room of his primary care physician. He knew there was something very wrong. He had explained away the depression. Nobody should have to bury a child. He had dismissed the tiredness as related to the depression or all the nights the twins had kept him up with one nightmare or another. That bladder infection – that could happen to anybody. But he couldn't explain away the strange pain. He'd never, ever had pain like this. Oh other things had hurt worse over the years. Kidney stones, now they were bad. The worst pain he ever had, even worse than after he'd being shot up at Quang Tri City during Tet in '68.

It was Spring Turkey season. He should have been up at his place in Ostego County with his double barrel calling for a big Tom, not sitting in a damn doctor's office worrying about why he felt sick. Instead he, Martha and James sat and watched the twins playing.

Finally a nurse came out and said "Mr. and Mrs. Arbogast, Dr. Goldman will see you now."

He raised an eyebrow. Doctors don't usually call your wife in.

"I'll watch them," James said. "It will be alright."

They followed her back to the doctor's office. Even though he'd been going to Dr. Goldman for 30 years, it was the first time he had ever been inside his office. "Sit, Tim," he said.

"Give it to me straight," Tim said, sitting. "No weasel words."

"I will, but I don't know for sure. I am sending you to a specialist."

"What kind?"

"An oncologist."

"Dear God," Martha said, her face turning pale

Tim nodded, unfortunately not surprised. "A cancer doctor. What is it?"

Dr. Goldman sighed. "I'm not positive. But your blood and urine tests have several issues that make me suspect you have a condition named multiple myeloma."

Tim nodded. He'd heard of it. It had been trimming the ranks of his old unit like non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and Parkinson's Disease. He thought he had been one of the lucky ones to escape the long term ravages of Operation Ranch Hand. "Only you can prevent a forest," they joked at the time over their precious cans of Ba Moui Ba beer after a long day of slogging through the jungles and spraying from their backpack sprayers the mixture of JP-4 jet fuel and that chemical agent they loaded from orange striped 55 gallon barrels. He knew that the brass was lying then when they claimed it was harmless to people. They wouldn't be puking and pissing blood if it were. But when you're in the military your body belongs to Uncle Sam to do with as he sees fit. "How long have I got?"

"I'm not sure you have it. That's why I'm referring you to a specialist."

"You wouldn't be sending me unless you knew something."

"You want doom and gloom? I will give you doom and gloom. The articles on multiple myeloma I read said the average life expectancy is three and a half years with chemo. At your age and as bad of a patient as you are I'd give you less. Aggressive stem cell transplantation adds another year in younger patients but you're just over the age doctors usually stop giving stem cell treatment."

Martha hugged Tim, crying. "It's not fair. Just when I hoped to have you all to myself."

Tim rubbed her back. "We always knew death would come. This is just a little sooner than I planned. But it's been a good life. I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else."

"It still could be something else, Mrs. Arbogast. That is why I am referring him to the best specialists in the city. But they will need to take a bone marrow sample, MRI's and other tests to make a positive diagnosis. Only then can they make a prognosis and start treatment."

Tim let Dr. Goldman give Martha empty words that had a glimmer of hope but deep inside he knew what it was. Too many of his friends had gone this way. He began to make plans as they talked. He would fight it as he had always fought every enemy but he had to assume that this was a battle he would not win.

He let Martha and James handle the details of the referral to the specialists. His mind was focused on the twins. They had to be the highest priority. Barbara and Agatha had no need of him. Agnes had Saul and those three dear little girls. "We're going to move to California," Tim said as they walked out of the doctor's office. "To our place by Agnes and Saul's ranch."

"But we can't just leave everyone and everything."

"Why not? Gemma is in heaven. Barbara has her doggies and kitties. Agatha is doing her whole … thing … in between San Francisco and Sacramento. This puts you by most of our living children and all your grandchildren. James, I want you to come with us. We need you and I promise I will pay for Tyrone and Jasmine to go to the best private schools in the area."

"Let me talk to Rebecca. Mama has to be happy or nobody is happy."

Tim nodded. "Fair enough."


	66. The Monster

**The Monster**

She was still living with Catherine but she was as grown up as she was now. She was in the living room but she was naked. Catherine was lying on the couch and looked her up and down admiringly as she sipped a generous scotch on the rocks. As she drank, Catherine began to take off her tiger striped silk blouse and skirt. Her slip, stockings and underwear came off and by the time she had emptied the glass she was wearing only her rings and her butterfly tattoo. Juliet knew that was not a good sign. Catherine took her and did things to her in places and ways that she should not. She knew she had to smile and moan and pretend that she liked it but it made her shiver inside like taking the worst tasting medicine imaginable. She turned her back to Catherine because she knew Catherine expected her to do things to her that she really didn't want to.

"Come back," Catherine called to her, filling the glass with scotch and handing it to her. She gulped it and then a second one, feeling that wonderful sunshine that started in her mouth that traveled up her nose and on through the top of her head as she felt her arms and her legs become longer and longer. As her mind left her body Catherine called her again. As she went to her mother and felt her mother's mouth on hers, she could feel her mind floating away up and past the ceiling and into the night.

When she finally came back inside her own head and body, she was lying on the kitchen floor, still naked. She got up and walked back in the living room. Catherine was dressed again in her tiger stripes, asleep on the couch.

It hadn't happened, Juliet told herself. It was just some strange dream. But when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror she saw that her face was melting away and she was becoming an alien monster with no hair or eyelashes and bright red eyes. She screamed and screamed and screamed as her skin turned into a translucent pink and her features became more alien. She went to Catherine and began beating on Catherine with her fists as she screamed at her to give her back herself but the more she cried and hit the more Catherine seemed to enjoy it.

Until Juliet gradually found that she was standing and pounding the wall in the hallway of the apartment on Park Avenue in New York. The light was on and Bridget was next to her. "It's all right," she said. "It's all right. We're here. It's just a dream."

Her heart was pounding and she was sweating. "She had sleep terrors and sleep walking when she was a little girl," Andrew said. "I thought she'd outgrown them."

"Let me make you some cocoa," Bridget said, trying to take her by the hand but Juliet pulled it back with a cry of pain.

"Let's see that hand," Andrew said, taking it by the wrist and examining it closely. "We're going to have to watch it."

"It's alright," Juliet said, taking it back. "I'm sure it's alright."

"Let's hope so," he said. "But we need to watch it. You were slamming the wall really hard."

Juliet turned to Bridget instead. "Maybe some cocoa does sound like a really good idea."

They went into the kitchen and Bridget nuked three cups of milk and cocoa powder. "Do you remember the dream?"

Juliet shrugged. "Something about a big pink faced monster with no eyebrows or hair that was melting." She didn't want to tell them about it. It couldn't have been real. She didn't want them to know how twisted she was inside.

The oven dinged. Bridget took out the mugs, dropped a marshmallow in each and stirred them. "I don't remember you having nightmares like this."

"She doesn't," Andrew said, taking his cup. "Not since she was like six."

"It's all those meds they gave me in the hospital. They mess with my head."

Andrew looked at Bridget inquiringly. Bridget shrugged as she sipped her cocoa. "It could be."

"That's all it is. They're making me imagine weird stuff." It had to just be her imagination. There was no other reasonable explanation she told herself. "Can we get my meds changed? I hate this."

Andrew nodded as he drank. "Of course we will if it becomes a pattern. Bridget, please make sure the doctor gets a full report in the morning."


	67. You Were Right

**You were right**

"No Doctor Nagarnik," she said, pulling up a chair at the six foot long counter she was looking at. It had a price tag of $20 on it. "She got up and left her room and was pounding the walls with her fist and all the while she was still asleep." She looked at the identical counter beside it. It too was marked $20.

On the other end of the phone was the prescribing doctor for Juliet. She had left a message first thing in the morning describing what Juliet had done but it wasn't until lunch that he called back. Of course it had been at the worst possible time, after she had taken a lovely walk down the tree covered streets and past all the old houses to what had been a very nice material and decorating store by Central Park. She had just wanted to pick up the elastic so she could turn some old jeans into maternity pants. Even though she was only sixteen weeks pregnant the only clothes she had that still fit comfortably were the two jumpers Tim had paid for. Everything of Siobhan's was skin tight. Unfortunately the store was closing. There was no elastic and what little fabric that was left was horrible. "No, Mrs. Martin. This medication could not cause such a waking dream reaction," he said with that distinctive Indian ring she'd gotten to expect around Bellevue's physicians.

"Bullshit," Bridget said. "I saw it. Her father saw it." Her experience with psych medication was mostly by practical experience but as a good pill head she knew her Physician's Desk Reference well. She had to know it and texts on symptoms and disorders to get doctors to prescribe her exactly what she wanted. As she did her research, she also learned what pills you do not mix. "You have her on Fluoxetine, Ritalin and Librium. You can't tell me that isn't a damn dangerous cocktail."

"I am the doctor. Don't you think I know best for your daughter? Are you trained in medicine?"

"I have years of experience working with substance abuse patients." Technically that was true. She did, but she was the patient. "You mixed a MAO inhibitor with a central nervous system stimulant and a SSRI. All are contraindicated for mixing with each other." She sighed. She shouldn't have to be going through this fight. She had been concerned about the mix even before there were any major side effects. Last night's episode had been very scary so instead of going to bed she spent a good hour with Dr. Google reviewing the drug interactions and the buzz words so she would sound like an educated parent and not the junkie girlfriend. What she found was extremely alarming.

"That is the standard procedure. All are standard formula for treating alcohol withdrawal patients."

She sighed. This doctor had jacked up the brains of who knew how many kids and he was denying that there was a problem. That was the problem. "Yes, but not all together."

"The risk is only moderate."

"And Juliet lost when you gambled. Please get all of her records ready to be picked up. We will be seeking a competent physician to handle Juliet's issues."

"But you can't just stop these medications."

Bridget stood up and paced. "I understand that. We will be taking her to another doctor." She wouldn't put Juliet through another cold turkey. The withdrawal process off the Librium would take weeks, if she would stay off the street crap. Juliet's safety was the highest priority but while she was still talking to the doctor Bridget examined the very solid shelf units that had once held large bolts of material. Now they had a price of $30 written on a piece of masking tape and they were in like new condition. There were eight units that hadn't been bought and she had a plan. She had been kicking the idea around for days in her head but buying the furniture new was so expensive she didn't want to even suggest it to Andrew. "I will be picking up the records personally. Good day."

She took pictures of the units with her phone and took the manager's card. It had begun to sprinkle outside. She would have walked home through the drizzle but she didn't feel like walking to Hunter College and then from the 28th street station to Bellevue. She knew she could but she didn't want to so she hailed a cab.

Was she taking Andrew for granted, she wondered. She wasn't his wife. Before, he thought she was. He seemed to be coming to terms with it, but there were no guarantees.

In the cab, she composed an e-mail to Andrew. "You were right to have me call the doctor. The med combination is dangerous and has dangerous side effects. The doctor is incompetent. We need to get her to someone better. Please print and sign a release form so I can pick up Juliet's records and leave it with Claudine to fax over. I'll be sending you a plan to re-do part of the living room in a little while. If you're busy, ignore it. We can talk about that over dinner."

Bridget put a subject line of "URGENT – Juliet's doctor" on the mail message and sent it.

Andrew's Microsoft Outlook popped up a little box. From: Siobhan Martin. Subject: URGENT – Juliet's doctor. You were right …" With a subject line like that he opened the mail message immediately and read it. He knew that something was seriously wrong. It was a very good decision of his that he had told Bridget to call the doctor.

With a smile and more than a little pride he composed a quick note in reply. "I already put your name on file for all her medical information and decision making."

He thought back to when Tim told him that he could spend up to $500 without going to him for confirmation as he continued his reply. "If it is less than $250 and you can quickly undo it, do it now and show me later."

As he sent the mail message, he made a mental note that he would have to get the name on that e-mail account changed. Then he thought more about it and decided against it.

In the cab she was composing a rough diagram when Andrew's mail came in. She read it with a bit of concern but was overjoyed that she was earning back some of his confidence. She didn't want to lose it. When the doctor called her Mrs. Martin it gave her a thrill. Mrs. Martin is what she wanted to be more than anything.

She thought there would be an argument to get Juliet's records. Instead the receptionist in pediatric psychiatry just took a photocopy of Bridget's driver's license and made her sign a form. The records were even neatly tied up in a double plastic bag so they wouldn't get rained on. It made sense, she realized afterwards. Juliet was now one less patient for him to worry about.

She sat in the waiting room for Juliet to get out of her outpatient program. A little Muslim woman who was covered almost from head to toe with just the little oval of her face was waiting there too. She had her cell phone tied to her face by her head wrap. It made Bridget smile to see people look at the modern world around them and then take just the pieces they wanted from it.

A black young man went to the Muslim woman when group broke up. Soon Juliet shuffled on out. "Si … Br … Mom," she said, surprised and pleased as she sat by her.

"How are you feeling?"

Juliet shook her head. "Not very good."

"Let's go home," Bridget said, picking up the package of records.

In the taxi going home, Bridget said "You were right. About the reason you had that nightmare."

"It's all those meds from here?"

Bridget shook her head. "Not just from here. When is the last time you took any street drugs?"

Juliet sat there, awkwardly looking out her window and not answering.

"Last night?"

She turned her back to Bridget like a dog that was pretending its owner wasn't there.

Bridget tapped her on the shoulder. "Did you take more Benzos?"

"Just so I could sleep. I only took one."

Bridget sighed. "You were right. It was the meds that triggered the reaction. You were prescribed a risky mix and when you self-medicated yourself more of the same you went over the edge."

"But they're sleeping pills."

"And they can come back at you with a nasty bang. No more street crap. If you think you need your meds adjusted, we go to your doctor."

"Right. Why should I trust Doctor Harold and Kumar who screwed me up with all his crap in the first place?"

"Well I have good news and bad news about your doctor."

"Oh? What's the good news? You're shipping him back to New Delhi?"

"Close." She tossed the bag of records into Juliet's lap. "He's no longer your doctor. Those are your records."

"Sweet!"

"I even have a little surprise for you at home. I hope you'll like it."

"What's the bad news?"

"You are on a very dangerous combination of meds. You can't just stop taking it. I already have an appointment with another doctor for you to get your meds safely managed but for now you have to stick to your prescription, no less, no more and no unauthorized substitutions."

Andrew had wondered what she'd bought as he took the cab home. He had figured it was some new piece of art. What he found was not at all what he expected and it made him wonder whether his decision to let her go ahead without seeing it was a mistake. He walked around the improvised office cubes, feeling the units for steadiness and the weight of the construction. They were solid and durable but aesthetically they were hideous. The desks were sea green. The dividers were the pale color of pine wood. To say that they clashed with everything around them was an understatement. "What's for dinner," he said finally.

"No comment on the living room additions?"

"It's less than $250. We can easily undo it. What I don't understand why you wanted to put in two desks and why you added the cubicle divider?"

"I got two desks because we need them. I want to start taking on-line college classes and I even found some classes for free."

"Even though you're pregnant you want to start college?"

"I'm starting now because I'm pregnant. I'm going to be stuck home with a baby soon. If I don't get some adult mental stimulation I will go nuts."

Andrew stood stoically, trying to not let his face show his feelings. Things had gone to Hell with Catherine after Juliet was born. He would be smart and not repeat the same mistake twice. "Your point is taken. Juliet, what do you think?"

"Dad, you two stuck me with a computer in the living room. I can't do schoolwork when I feel like someone is breathing down my neck. Just those book cases and that little bit of room will make all the difference."

"Would you like your friends seeing these here?"

"It's better than Siobhan's crap. This is honest and I'm not afraid it will break if I breathe on it. Her stuff is pretentious and butt ugly. Sell it all and let's make it into a living room we can actually live together in and not a museum to bad taste."

"Andrew, Juliet is right. Your son is going to be here in about five months. You don't need marble statuettes on tippy little tables. You need a rocking chair so I can nurse him."

"Can't we have both?"

"Not for long. As soon as he is a toddler he will pull everything down to the floor."


	68. The Prison

**The Prison**

Catherine knew she had to eat but as hard as she tried she couldn't force herself to eat another sandwich of rancid bologna on green bread. She stared at the sandwich in her hand and just gave up.

Then another wave of nausea hit her. What little bit of the sandwich she had gotten down came right back up again.

She thought back to when she had food poisoning before. She had had it both in Cancun and in Thailand. When she threw up she felt better those times. This time she felt much worse. Her stomach had been aching with a dull pain for days and the puking made it so much worse.

She tried to lie down on the bunk, feeling completely exhausted but her nagging cough became so bad she had to sit up. The cold, damp prison cell had given her the flu or pneumonia along with the food poisoning. But her misery had come in many forms. The cheap prison soap had left her skin so dry that she itched all over. Oh what she would give for a good tube of moisturizer. She had been fighting not to scratch herself for days but as she sat there coughing and sweating she just couldn't help herself.

Eventually the guards tossed another bag with a bologna sandwich through the meal slot. She couldn't even think of it without feeling sick at her stomach. She just sat on her bunk, feeling simply exhausted.

Later, the guard slipped in the tray.

"You on hunger strike?"

"No, Sir. I feel sick." Her voice was shaky and weak. She wondered if the guard could even hear her over all the banging of the apes in their cages. "I think I have food poisoning. Please take me to the doctor, Sir."

"Nobody else is complaining." He slammed the door. "And this is the Chef's best chili. You don't wanna insult the chef by not eating his chili."

"I feel sick," she said, coughing.

He wrote her up as on hunger strike.

She tried to force herself to get up and eat something. She still had her morning fruit snack bar. That was always the best part of a meal. There probably was another one in either the lunch or the dinner, maybe in both. But she couldn't make herself do it.

She had tried to lie down to sleep but she coughed so much and was so short of breath she thought she was going to choke. She had to sleep squatting upright huddled in the corner of her bunk. It was a horrible night's sleep.

She had scratched her skin raw by morning but she was a little bit rested. She forced herself to get up and wash up and brush her teeth but she couldn't win even then. The cheap, hard prison tooth brush made her gums bleed. Instead she washed off the tooth paste and used it to get to those places she couldn't scratch.

A little while later, the first lunch sack of the day was tossed in and went plop into the by now ant covered dinner tray of chili. The guard looked in closer and then opened the door.

"Prisoner, why are you still on hunger strike?"

"I'm not on hunger strike, Sir. I'm sick," she said, coughing.

"Do you want me to call the doctor?"

"Yes, please, Sir."

He called on his radio that she said she was sick and hadn't eaten in a day. Then he slammed the door and went on to the next cell.

She thought over and over about everything Siobhan had done to her and how she must be laughing at her now. She must be lying back on that couch puffing away and making her Andrew and her Juliet do exactly what she wanted. She had stolen her life. She had to get out and get her own life back again.

Siobhan got away with her crime because she was a blonde haired shiksa. Catherine knew all she had tried to do was to take back what she had stolen from her but the twisted police department had put her in jail.

She had to get out. She couldn't let Siobhan get away with her crimes. But how, Catherine wondered. She wasn't even a human being any more. She was "Prisoner." She was trapped in her nightmare. Each day in solitary had felt a little worse than the last. Each day the walls seemed to close in just a little bit closer. Each day was one day further from Juliet. She felt like crying and wanted her valiums so bad. Why did they take her pills away? She'd be a much better prisoner if they'd give them back.

Eventually, the guard tossed another bag of the lethal New Jersey toxic waste that her jailers pretended was food into her cell. She ignored it, like the growing pile of others. "When is the doctor coming," she asked.

"Hopefully today or tomorrow."

She sat in her bed, coughing and waiting helplessly. She couldn't help wondering if she would survive until tomorrow the way she felt.

She began to realize that her chances of getting a doctor in prison when she needed it were as bad as her chances when she asked for a psychiatrist. In short, hopeless. They were going to starve her to death. But she would fool them all. She would kill herself. But how would she do it? How could she do it? She had no razor to slash her wrists. She had no glass except perhaps the light bulb. But how to get to it? Perhaps she could hang herself. But with what? Maybe she could cut her sheet up and make a rope. She would show them. She would make them all sorry. She imagined the funeral with a smile. She would have to write her eulogy. But it all seemed like far too much work at the moment. Maybe she could die when she felt better.

Eventually the clink of the outer door lock alerted her to something happening again. Her door opened again. She figured it was dinner time. She closed her eyes to ignore it. Instead her outer door opened and the guard tossed in a set of manacles. "Lock yourself up."

"You're taking me to the doctor?"

"No. You have a visitor."

"I don't know if I can make it."

"Should I tell them you refuse to see them?"

She's wasn't even sure she can make it that far. She felt so weak. But she put on the manacles anyway. "No, I'll make it." She couldn't tell Juliet to just go away. It had to be Juliet. Who else could it be?

The SS Totenkopf camp guard brought Catherine from her cell with a cloth bag on her head, her hands shackled and a collar and leash around her neck.

They finally sat her down on little hard, metal stool that felt like a lunch counter, undid one handcuff and shackled it to her stool. Only then did they remove her collar and hood. She was in front of a window with a telephone in front of her and a thick window separating her from the rest of the world. The stool was on a pipe that went directly into the hard concrete and a big sign was painted above her that read "KEEP HANDS IN PLAIN SIGHT AT ALL TIMES." To her disappointment it wasn't Juliet on the other side of the glass but only her lawyer, Lillian Hassler.

When Catherine saw her last in court, her lawyer had been in a fine suit. This time she was in a pink hoodie and a T-shirt. Lillian picked up the phone and gestured for Catherine to do the same.

Lillian stared and stared at her. "God you look like shit."

"That's a wonderful way to greet your client. When are you going to get me out of here," Catherine asked frantically.

"No," Lillian said. "You really look scary bad." She pulled a makeup mirror out of her purse and held it up to the thick glass.

Catherine looked at herself. She looked like her own grandmother. Her face was drawn, thin and pale. She could see that she was trembling uncontrollably and what damage her scratching the horrible itching had done to her skin. She began to sob.

Lillian put the mirror away. "I'm sorry. We need to get you out of this dungeon."

"Can you get me out today?"

"No. But I do have something that will cheer you up. Siobhan Martin is dead."

"Yes." Catherine pumped her fist in the air with her free hand. "How did it happen? Did Andrew do the deed?"

"She committed suicide late last month. I think it was somewhere in Manhattan but my usual sources won't give me any of the juicy details." Lillian sighed. "If you had just waited a month then Siobhan would have solved your problem herself."

"That's one less person who can testify against me. When can you get me out?"

"It isn't happening."

"What? You're supposed to be the best."

"The prosecutors are going for three charges that carry a mandatory minimum term of life and they have tons of evidence to back it up. Remy Osterman has made a plea bargain and has now told them everything about your involvement in a second count of felony murder back in September."

"But I have friends and family. They would be character witnesses. They can explain this is all a mistake."

Lillian shook her head. "They're all deserting you like rats off a sinking ship. Even Juliet's sworn deposition would get you locked away."

Catherine winced. "That one hurts."

"She didn't have any choice. They asked questions and she just told the truth."

"I'm going to make a petition to the court that what they are doing to you constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. This is ridiculous."

"When will that get me out?"

"It won't but it will help you survive here. I can also file that you are Jewish and need Kosher meals and access to a Rabbi."

"NO! Not that."

"But the food is a lot safer. It's even edible."

Catherine looked around and then whispered "But it's the showers. I have them fooled." Of course she had them fooled. They still had her in an orange jump suit. They would have her in a black and white stripe smock if they knew.

Lillian sighed deeply, wondering if Catherine actually meant what she said. It all had to be part of an act for an insanity defense. She couldn't really be as crazy as she pretended to be. There had to be a core of self interest in there. "Catherine, they are going to kill you here. You will be so worn down you won't last until your trial. There is one only way out."

Catherine already knew about the one way out, up the chimney. She even knew there was a crematorium for the Jewish prisoners. The guards all pretended that the small smoke stacks were just for a power plant but she knew that it wasn't. They tried to hide it but she could still smell it. At night if you listened closely you could hear them talk about it on the guard's radios. They tried to talk about it in code words but she understood their codes. She was the only one who knew what really was going on. Horribly, she couldn't tell anyone else though because if she did then they would flip the secret switch when she went for a shower. She had to pretend this was only in an ordinary criminal prisoner's camp and not a death camp to stay alive. "How can you get me out?"

"A plea bargain."

Catherine opened her eyes wide. "You can get me out on probation?"

"No. The best deal I could get is for you to plead guilty to felony murder. If you do you get mandatory life without the possibility of parole."

"Some deal that is."

"Wait and listen. The deal is that you can serve your time any place you want. You can even have your choice of a mental hospital or a minimum security prison. The way you look, I'd definitely choose the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Wards Island. The food and health care is much better."

"Sure it is."

"Compared to here, it's a paradise. You would have a room, not a cell. You will have real food. They even will serve steak for dinner. You would have TV, group interactions and much freer visiting. I checked. It's only a six mile cab drive from Juliet's apartment. She would be able to come visit you almost any time."

"But I'll still be a prisoner."

"There, you will live so I can make appeals to get out. You will die if you stay here."


	69. It Was Wonderful

**It Was Wonderful**

They were in Fruit and Spice Park during the annual Asian Festival. They were going to have a picnic lunch under the mango trees. The park was crowded because of the festival but it was still nice, a warm, tropical spring day. She found a mango on the ground, but when she picked it up it had cockroaches on it. She threw it down in disgust, but Catherine made her eat it roaches and all. She began to throw up poop, big, stinky ropes of poop that were choking her. Then she saw Catherine had a knife in her hands. She ran but Catherine was bigger than her. She tried to scream for help but no sound came.

She ran and ran past smiling stone statues of Buddha until Catherine's powerful arm reached out, grabbed her and threw her down. "You filthy thing. No dirt will come out of your mouth ever again." She kneeled on Juliet, pinning her down. Juliet fought as hard as she could, but it was so hopeless. Catherine just ignored everything she did. Finally Catherine smacked her in the face and then with a great grin on her face reached into Juliet's mouth and cut out her tongue.

Voiceless and bleeding, Juliet cried as she lay helpless with Catherine holding her down as women in costumes with pretty fans just walked past her, ignoring her. She tried to scream at them but she had no voice.

And then she was thrashing around under the dining room table. Bridget and Andrew were under the table with her, all lights on. "It's OK, it's OK," Bridget said softly. "You're safe."

"You gave us quite a fright," Andrew said. "What were you dreaming?"

She looked away. "I don't remember."

Bridget looked her in the eye. "Juliet, I can tell when you're lying."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"It's important."

"I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it." She felt so ashamed. She couldn't tell them.

"What have you been doing? Bring it here?"

"Just what the doctor prescribed. Nothing but."

"I think she's telling the truth."

"Damn right I am. The last one scared me half to death."

"Us too."

"I want you to write the dream down," Andrew said. "Go in your room and get your journal."

"But that's like you're making me undress in the living room." Then she looked away and covered her mouth, wondering if she had said too much.

"I promise. We won't peek. I just want to know you have written it down and know what it was. Alright?"

She didn't want to do it. But if she fought they would press harder until she told.

"At my desk in the living room, nobody over my shoulder."

"Nobody will come closer than the couch." He took her by the hand and got her to stand up. Then he went to Bridget. "You watch her from the couch. Is there anything you'd like?"

"Just some onions and mustard with a lemon on the side."

"Fried onions with mustard on it?"

"No, raw. I can slice one up. You don't have to."

He about gagged at the thought of her eating raw onions and mustard, but went into the kitchen and did it anyway

"We used to keep a night light on," he said as he cut. "I tried different colors. Blue worked best."

"I'll get one. Did anything else help?"

"I tried to cut back on the sugar and I think that helped. I disconnected the TV set. All she got to watch was nature documentaries on plants and classical music concerts."

"And you wonder why I still hate classical music?"

He brought Bridget two lemon slices and an onion on a plate with a squeeze bottle of American style mustard. He expected Bridget to squeeze the lemon on the onion and put on a little mustard. Instead she ate the lemon slices and half drowned the onions before chomping them down. "Thanks, Honey. That was good."

"Do you want anything else?"

"Another just like this, please."

In more than a bit of revulsion, he went and made sliced another onion and lemon. Still, it was better than Catherine's cravings. She liked to eat dirt and charcoal. She would mix it with crushed ice and eat it like ice cream.

Bridget was most of the way through the second onion when Andrew saw Juliet stand up and lock her diary. "All done."

"Do you think you can go back to sleep now?"

She thought. "Mom, would you stay with me?"

"You two take our bed," Andrew said, thinking of sleeping with someone who had just eaten two onions. "I'll sleep in her bed. And get her to the doctor tomorrow. This is getting very scary. Something is very wrong."

Juliet was not pleased as she lay in bed with Bridget trying to sleep. She kept tossing and turning and it wasn't the sound of Bridget's onion scented snoring that was keeping her awake. The past was crowding into the present. Why didn't they just let the past stay in the past? What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, or her.

When she finally did wake, she was alone in the big bed. She found Bridget alone in the kitchen with the phone in one ear as she poured chili powder on eggplant slices and ate them. "No, we need to see the doctor today. What happened last night was really dangerous. She didn't know where she was or what she was doing. We live on the fourteenth floor and we're both terrified that next time she'll go off the balcony and be killed."

"Bridget," Juliet said angrily. "Can't you just leave well enough alone? I'll detox and I'll be fine."

"We need to find out what's going on. I thought you'd want to stop this happening to you."

"I don't want to go and you can't make me."

"Actually I can," she said calmly as she ate a veggie slice coated in hot pepper. "Andrew gave me legal, notarized power of attorney over you including your health care and your schooling. So, would you like some waffles or eggs for breakfast?"

Juliet was furious. "I don't want to do this. I don't need to. It will all just go away."

"Can you hear her," Bridget asked the receptionist on the phone. "She won't tell us what is happening, she doesn't want to tell us what she was dreaming and she doesn't want to go to the doctor when she wakes up screaming. This is so utterly unlike her. We are both frightened."

Juliet bit her lip to stay calm. She had to lie. She had to come up with a good lie to cover herself. "I'm really not feeling very good," she said, trying to cough and not producing a very good result.

Bridget paused, watching her. "Maybe some toast and yoghurt?"

She was far too nervous and upset to eat. "I'll just go back to bed."

"Yes, thank you," Bridget said to the phone. "Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Bye." She put the portable phone back in the charge cradle and turned to Juliet, looking at the clock on the stove. "Maybe you should take a relaxing bath instead. Our appointment is over the doctor's lunch time."

She stormed out and went to her bathroom, temporarily defeated but still trying to come up with a way out.

The doctor was at New York Presbyterian hospital, just a short cab drive away. Juliet had spent all her time in the tub thinking of a way out of the mess. She even had extra time to refine her plan.

Bridget went in first with a diaper bag full of Juliet's medical history documentation. The doctor's name was Michelle Banks. She looked so young to Bridget, barely older than she was and so attractive with perfect hair and perfect nails. Yet Bridget saw a cruel hardness to her face hidden behind the professional smile and disturbingly cold grey eyes. She and Siobhan could well have been shopping companions. Bridget knew she had met her somewhere before, at yet another dreadfully boring party Gemma had dragged her to in the Hamptons last year if she remembered correctly. But if Dr. Banks recognized her she made no sign of it.

First Dr. Banks went over Juliet's medical history from the child sleepwalking through the last hospitalization. Only then did she start asking questions about the sleep walking incident, starting with "At what time did this happen?"

Bridget thought for a second. "It's always been about 3:30 or 4:00 AM."

"You're quite sure she was dreaming."

Bridget shrugged. "She said so. She usually tells us little bits like melting monsters or being in the wrong body. Last night she even wrote it down."

"What was it about?"

"I don't know. She wouldn't tell us. But her father had her write it down so she would remember it and she said she had."

Then it was Bridget's turn to sit in the waiting room. She felt depressed as she sat there, and eventually she realized what she felt depressed about. The youth of Dr. Banks made her feel like there was a big neon sign over her head that said "I blew ten years of my life getting high."

There was no way to get those years back. All she could do is make the best possible use of the years she had left she told herself as she took out a practice worksheet she had printed off for her basic accounting class.

She had just started her third worksheet when Dr. Banks came out and asked for her to join Juliet in her office. "First," Dr. Banks said as she sat back down behind her desk, "What you are describing is called REM sleep behavior disorder. It isn't sleep walking and it is also very rare. When it happens the cause is usually directly related to antidepressant or alcohol use."

"So please just let me stop taking the psycho meds," Juliet said.

"Not so fast," said Dr. Banks, holding up her hand. "When it isn't caused by medication it is an advance warning of brain degeneration disease such as Parkinson's. So we need to perform a comparative sleep study."

"A sleep study," Juliet said, sinking. She had seen some documentary on them and she didn't like the idea of them wiring her up to machines and video taping her while she slept one little bit. "That's awful. Can't we just stop the medicine and wait and see?"

"No. This could indicate a very serious condition."

"When can we do it," Bridget asked.

"You're in luck. They had a cancellation for tonight."

Juliet squirmed in her chair. "But I really don't want to do this."

Bridget chuckled. "I don't want them to take a blood test when I go to the obstetrician but they need to do it and you need to do this."

"I am afraid."

"I'm terrified of needles but I have to do it anyway."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Dr. Banks said. "The procedure is quite painless and completely safe. Are you Juliet's mother?"

"Only by soul, not by blood." Bridget sighed, then pointed at her belly. "Her father is Junior's father and I have Andrew's signed power of attorney for all medical decisions for Juliet."

"Where is her mother?"

"The prison on Riker's Island."

"No, Dad said they moved Catherine to the mental hospital on Wards Island."

"Oh good," Bridget said.

"Either you or her father will need to be present tonight and sleep over."

"One of us will be there."

"I'll give you the forms to complete and have the receptionist make all the arrangements. The Sleep Center is just a few blocks away on 61st Street. It's important that Juliet continue for today with the medication as prescribed so we can get a good comparison between your brain during an attack and afterwards when we have weaned you off the suspect meds."

"What if I don't get it tonight?"

"Then we keep trying." She printed out forms and handed them to Bridget. "Do you have any questions?"

"Not yet."

"Good. Then maybe you can tell me why Juliet told me the plot of _Enter Nowhere_ when I asked her to tell me what her dream was."

Bridget was absolutely stunned. "What do you mean?"

Juliet tried to become invisible and disappear into her chair so she could flee. As hard as she tried, it didn't work. Dr. Banks smiled at her. "Ah, you didn't think I'd seen that movie did you?"

"No," Juliet said faintly.

"You lied to the doctor? Why?"

"I plead the fifth amendment."

Andrew was tired as he walked in the door but not in a bad mood. The day had generally been successful and as of late he had considerably more freedom at the office. Tim's presence had dropped from watching over everything and everyone at the office to a daily briefing by telephone. Unfortunately as he walked in he could feel that his decent mood would rapidly fly out the window.

He had learned to tell how things had gone at home as soon as he stepped off the elevator by how dinner smelled. If it was a good day, Juliet would spend a couple of hours in the kitchen with Bridget making something delicious. Today's dinner did not smell at all good. In fact it was about the worst smell possible, the greasy, salt laden stench of Chinese from the place around the corner. "No I won't," he heard shrieking from the kitchen. It was Juliet. He checked the little calendar he kept hidden on his phone. It wasn't Juliet's period. It must be something far worse. "You can't make me."

He had read a message from Bridget that Juliet was supposed to do a sleep study tonight and that she didn't want to do it. "Young Lady, this is ridiculous," he said, looking at the gastronomic insult before him and then turned to Bridget. "Did you get Kung Pao chicken?"

"With Sichuan peppercorns and yusheng, the way you like it."

He wouldn't go so far as to say he liked any of their food but it wouldn't kill him. He quietly sat and found his containers and the rice. "Juliet, now what is your problem?"

"It's not necessary."

"Yes," he said. "It is. You will do it. Why you are fighting it so much?"

Juliet struggled to come up with the best reason that didn't say too much. "I don't want to do it."

"You will have to come up with a lot better reason than that, young lady. Now, one of the two of us will be going with you. Who do you choose?"

"But I don't want to do it at all."

"That's not an option. Your choice is doing it with Bridget there or me there." He paused, thinking. "I am willing to sweeten the pot if you behave well. You had been acting pretty good for the last couple of weeks. I was thinking of turning off your internet filtering tomorrow from 8:00 to 9:30."

Juliet scowled. "An hour and a half of internet for this?"

"You interrupted me. I would also keep it turning on at 8:00 to 9:30 as long as you're doing the things you should be doing and not doing what you shouldn't. That will include doing your school work and chores and not drinking or using."

"But you will just go fly off some place and I'll be screwed."

"You will get what I promise. Your internet access will be turned on and turned off automatically by the firewall. Now who do you choose?"

Juliet sighed. She had backed herself into a wall with this battle and she was losing it badly. Perhaps it was time to negotiate. "Just an hour and a half, if I miss all my TV time?"

"You can TIVO your TV shows and watch them without commercials," Bridget suggested, diving into her lemon chicken."

"Why just an hour and a half," Juliet asked as she ate her lo mein. "That's so little."

He looked Juliet firmly and yet tenderly right in the eye. "Look, taking away the internet was an act of desperation. You had been abusing everything and lying to everyone, especially yourself. I didn't know how else to communicate to you that what you've done has caused consequences far beyond just my being upset with you. Show me by your actions that you've really listened and understood and you'll start to get your privileges back."

"What about the tattoo if I am clean for a year?"

He took a bite of his fish salad. "I have been thinking a great deal about it."

"So I can have it?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. You are too young to be putting something on that you can't take off. But I do want to celebrate your progress. When you have been clean a year I will buy you something you can take off, in fourteen karat gold with your no more drinking or drugging day on it."

Juliet gave Bridget the puppy dog eyes. "Can't you make him understand?"

Bridget had been quietly eating with a faint smile on her face. "Your father is the head of the family and has made his wishes very clear. I will not go against them."

Andrew smiled back. They were beginning to approach being a normal family. It was wonderful.


	70. The Sleep Study

**The Sleep Study**

Juliet felt strange waiting for a taxi holding her stuffed animals, her quilt and her pillow. Bridget stood by her with a suitcase that held the overnight outfit for them both and a grocery sack of munchies.

It had been a difficult decision to choose which one would go with after she finally realized that there was no way that she could talk them out of it. She had told them that she wanted Bridget because that way it would be another girl there and that he could get an unbroken night's sleep for work in the morning. Of course that had nothing to do with it. It had been a calculation. Bridget might be able to tell if she was lying but Andrew knew her and her history far too well. If she slipped, he might well understand something Bridget would not.

The Sleep Center was between their apartment and the Queensboro bridge at 425 East 61st. They took the elevator to the 5th floor and Bridget called on a phone on the wall. The medical tech who answered the door looked to be Chinese but she spoke with a distinct Southern accent. Her nametag read Mary Sue. "I was wondering if you were coming. You're so late."

"We were delayed," Bridget said, eying Juliet.

After Bridget put the food in their refrigerator, Mary Sue showed them to a room that could almost have been in a motel. There was a double bed, a bathroom, a table, an easy chair, a TV with a remote and a DVD player. "Change into your sleepwear and then we'll get you set up."

After Juliet changed into her pajamas and fuzzy pink bunny slippers, Mary Sue sat her down in the chair. Bridget sat on the bed and worked on her homework as she ate carrot sticks as she watched Andrew's pocket HDTV video camera record the application of Mary Sue's monster make-up. Juliet said she wanted to make a youtube video of the whole process. By then both Andrew and Juliet were more than happy to oblige.

While Juliet sat back and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Mary Sue began the transformation. First she put straps around her chest and put rubber stickies on her legs and chest. Then she put stickies on her chest and connected all of these to wires. From there she began measuring her head and then applying marks with a red crayon. Then she scrubbed away the marks with a Q tip and what felt to Juliet like liquid sandpaper before gluing six contacts to her head with something that felt like glue.

She didn't like it but Juliet tried her best to avoid thinking about what was going on and stay still. Breathe in, breathe out and relax. Unfortunately as she breathed she got more and more of a taste in her mouth, a bitter taste that was almost like rubbery bleach. Her heart was racing and she could not help panting. She bit her tongue in her mouth to try to bring herself back and force herself not to shake. But when Mary Sue put goo around her face and under her chin she couldn't help but crying. She had exactly that same slithery feeling as when she was a little girl in Florida and every bit of the memory she had done her best to bury was in full IMAX 3D surround sound. Catherine had brought home another drunk. She was always picking up men at bars. But tonight she'd passed out on the couch and left Juliet alone with him.

Refusing to leave, he began to feel her in places should not and then he held her head to his private parts, hairy bits that had the same rubbery chlorine smell and taste. She began to gag and relived the torture in slow motion and after he was finished she had that same feeling of egg white running down her face. She felt as helplessness and ashamed as she did that night and she began to cry just as she did then. She tried not to. She needed to hold it in. She had to hide it as she desperately struggled to wipe it off and hide the evidence but she couldn't in time and Catherine stirred from the couch, saw the evidence on her face and beat the stuffing out of her.

The next morning of course Catherine would say that she didn't remember anything like it and that Juliet must have fallen down the stairs. Had she fallen down the stairs yet again and simply imagined it? That seemed more believable. Or had she deserved the punishment? Had she really been the eight year old temptress? Juliet never knew.

Juliet ignored the ripping wires and struggled to get away. She felt like she was that little kid again and just wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. It had been horrible enough the times when Catherine hadn't found out. But every time Catherine did she would beat her with a fury.

Mary Sue jumped back. "Juliet, you have to stay still."

Bridget dropped her carrots and her homework and sprang over to Juliet. "It's OK. I am here."

"No, please, please don't," Juliet cried.

"It's me, Bridget. I won't let anyone hurt you. Where are you? Look around you. Tell me where you are."

It was harder and harder for Juliet to think. It was like her mind was shutting down. She couldn't talk because if she did Catherine would only hit her more. But then she looked around at Bridget, at Harry Potter on the TV set and the gob struck Mary Sue. She squeezed Bridget's hand. "I am here and this is now."

"Yes. You are safe. You are with me and your father and I love you."

"I'm not sure if I can do this tonight."

Mary Sue nodded. "I think I agree."

"Where were you," Bridget asked, holding Juliet's hand. "What happened?"

"It was just a bad dream. Nowhere."

"Tell me the dream."

"I can't. It wasn't real. It didn't happen. It never happened."

"Tell me what didn't happen."

Juliet shook her head.

Later that night after Bridget and Andrew put Juliet to bed, Andrew plugged the video recorder into the TV in their bedroom and they listened to the recording on their wireless headphones. He was astonished at what he saw. It made no sense. He even played it a second time but it still made no sense. "What is it?"

"I saw that once before. We were doing The Tempest in High School and a really cute boy named Patrick Murphy was Prospero. I was the makeup artist. I was putting rubber cement around his mouth to glue the fake beard and mustache on and he began to cry and freak just like that." She shook her head. "Finally after getting it all off he explained that he had been sexually abused when he was little and begged me not to tell anyone anything. He said it made him not a man."

"You're not saying that I …"

She shook her head vehemently. "No, oh no! Not just men do sexual abuse."

His face dropped in sadness. Guilt and rage flooded through him. "Oh my God!" He wanted to think that Catherine wouldn't but after trying to murder Siobhan and using Juliet in a twisted game of sexual fraud he sadly knew better. "I should never have left Juliet with her." He wanted to go to Wards Island, find Catherine and kill her with his bare hands but then that anger turned inwards. Juliet was his daughter. He was ultimately responsible and he had failed. He felt as if the world was black around him. Yet as a good Martin he knew he couldn't show it. He locked his body tight as he tried to control his feelings. Yet even though he could keep himself from moving he couldn't stop the guilt and depression.

"You didn't know. And we still don't know ourselves if that really is what happened. It could be something completely different. Catherine might be innocent."

Andrew slept on the floor outside Juliet's room that night.


	71. Cleaning House

**Cleaning House**

Juliet was surprised to find Andrew silently sitting outside her door. It was past 8:00 AM but he was still not dressed for work. He hadn't even shaved. "I have failed," he said. "I completely failed."

She looked at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw the tape. The one of you from last night."

She backed up into her room but he stood and followed her, not letting her close the door on him. She felt that horrible cold and shaky feeling. She tried not to panic but she felt like she couldn't breathe and the more she breathed the more she felt like she was gasping for breath. She was increasingly confused and dizzy and her mouth and her arms tingled and twitched. It was like she was outside herself as he was following her and looming huge over her just the way Catherine did and as she backed up she could feel the two worlds in her head collide. For a moment she had a foot in both worlds and then the other one took over. Her hands and feet began to shake as she knew she would be beaten. She was in her room in the condo in Florida, backing away from Catherine and Catherine was yelling at her. She could see and hear and smell everything, but she was like a ghost, powerless to stop what was happening. "Please don't hurt me," she screamed. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Don't hit me."

He stopped and stared and stared at her. She wasn't making any sense.

Bridget came running in, looking at Andrew. "You didn't," she said to him.

He shook his head, utterly baffled and so terrified he could feel his lips were trembling. He held his hand up and she cringed, waiting for it to strike. Then he held up one finger and moved it up and down and back and forth as her eye tracked it. Then he put two fingers behind his head and wiggled them like bunny ears, just like he used to do when she was still in nappies and her worlds began to shift back. She collapsed on her bed in a flood of tears and with a splitting headache.

She was so angry and so afraid and so ashamed.

He sat on the floor near her bed so he would still be close to eye level with Juliet. "I would never hurt you. I would never hit you." He smiled. "I may have felt like it a few times but I never would. I came in to apologize to you."

She looked at him, still sobbing uncontrollably.

"I didn't know," he continued. "I am so sorry. I failed you."

She shook her head as she cried. He hadn't failed. She had failed. She had failed everyone. She felt so powerless and useless that she wanted her life to be over.

Andrew looked at her and then looked up at Bridget in desperation. "What do we do? How do we fix this?"

Bridget's eyes said she had no idea. "Let's give her some space to calm down."

Tears still streaming down her face, Juliet said "I need a drink."

Bridget smiled. "I'll get you a glass of water."

"No, a drink."

Andrew's face dropped again in despair. "No you may not have a drink."

"It's not fair. You can get a drink when you say you need one."

Bridget shook her head. "Your father is right. You are still on that mega dose of benzos. Benzos and booze is a very dangerous combo."

"So did you ever take drink and take valium?"

Bridget began to answer but Andrew turned to her and shook his head. "You will be in deep trouble young lady if you do drink. You do not have my permission. You won't get my permission. I promise you that if you do manage to sneak it you will very, very much regret it."

"But I need it. I can't go on like this."

Bridget sat beside her on the bed. "You saw what happened the last time you went on a bender. You almost died and someone else did die."

"I'm sorry Joey died but he could have died without me there."

Andrew stood firm, his eyes narrowed with anger. "I saw you almost completely lifeless. You were pulled back from the brink of death."

"Juliet, you may not get in trouble like that every time you drink but when you get in trouble every time you've been drinking or drugging."

"So maybe I will get in trouble. But I can't go on living like this. Maybe trouble or die for sure? I'll take maybe."

Andrew looked her firmly in the eye. "You will not."

"You can't keep me in a bubble forever."

"Today I will. I legally can for another 23 months. If you defy me, I will see to it you …"

Bridget turned to Andrew, shaking her head. "No, Honey. That won't work."

"Of course it will."

"It might for a day or a week or a month, but sooner or later if she is determined she will find a way." Bridget smiled sadly. "You would be amazed how creative a desperate drunk is."

"But that's a month from now. And by then we might have things fixed."

"Your maybe is the flip side of her maybe. She is the one who has to want to be healed and until she does sooner or later she'll give into that little voice in her head that says it will be alright to drink or to use this time and that she needs it this time. I know that voice and all the times I tried to clean up by myself sooner or later it would beat me." She stroked Juliet's hair. "I know you want the bottle to take away the nightmares in your head but sooner or later the bottle turns on you. You will have your nightmares and the problems from alcohol and there's no problem that drinking can't make worse."

"But what do we do for her now?"

"She has to make the first move. She has to want to stop drinking more than she wants to drink."

"But I do wish I could stop. I just can't. You don't understand how it is."

"I do. Oh I do."

Juliet laughed harshly, thinking of the trite words she had heard so many times in the AA meetings at this rehab and the others. "Now you're going to tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and do Chapter five of the Big Book again."

Bridget shook her head. "No. I am not. I am going to ask you two questions and then I am going to tell you about me. Haven't you been curious about who Siobhan and I were when we were your age?"

Andrew looked at the clock. He was far too late. He'd have to do his call to Tim in the cab as is. "Can I help? Do you need me now?"

"We both need you desperately but not for this. You will feel more relaxed at the office and I'll call you if there is any need."

He laughed, nodding his head. Work had been where he had gone to relax for the last month. It was an odd thing but it was true. "I will let you girls alone then. I can be home in twenty minutes if you need me."

"I think we'll be fine." She turned to Juliet. "Would you like some chocolate ice cream?"

Juliet thought about it for a moment. It did beat lying in a bed soaked in tears. She nodded and got up.

As Andrew showered and she took a spoon full of Chocolate Moose Tracks ice cream, Bridget said "There are two questions I want to ask you. I need you to be honest with your answers."

"I don't want to talk about last night or this morning."

"Then we won't. I promise. But do you promise to be honest?"

Juliet nodded as she poured chocolate chips on top of her ice cream.

"When you drink, do you ever start out saying you want just one drink and then after you've had one you really, really, really want two and after you've had two you just got to have another two?"

Juliet knew exactly where Bridget was trying to lead her. "I read all about that in the Big Book. It said that some old doctor from a hundred years ago said that an alcoholic is allergic to alcohol. I know what I feel like when I am around cats and get an allergy attack. My eyes run and my nose gets stuffed up and I cough and that isn't at all what I feel like. So I am not allergic to alcohol. It's just nuts."

Bridget shook her head. "That's not the question I asked you. I asked you if you have ever really craved another drink after having one when you just wanted one to start with."

Juliet smirked. "Who doesn't?"

"Your father doesn't. Have you ever watched him when he drinks? He'll slowly drink one throughout a dinner or an evening and then as often as not he will stop with the one. Maybe he will have a second but I can't remember ever watching him drink more than that. When people will ask him if he'd want another drink he tells them he has drunk enough and doesn't want any more."

"The way he drinks so torturously slowly, it's painfully abusing good alcohol." Juliet looked down into her ice cream as she had seen him just slowly stirring his drinks, taking a sip and then stirring some more. Of course she had noticed it but she drank the way she did and it was fine by her.

"But that's the way most people drink. When you were at that cocktail party where I belted Mr. Carpenter was anyone pounding their martinis down? How about at that party at Aunt what was her name in New Zealand?"

She took a spoon full of ice cream and thought. She had watched them at Aunt Eirian's ANZAC Day fund raiser party. Most didn't even finish one mug but that only meant there was more left over for her. "But I can be different. I know I can learn to control my drinking."

"But it doesn't happen that way does it? Every time you drink, you keep drinking one more until it's all gone and you're all gone. I know. I am exactly the same way."

"That's a yes then?"

Juliet looked up. She didn't want to give Bridget the satisfaction of saying it. "So what?"

"With that settled I shall ask the second question. Do you find your mind to be focused on drinking and using? When things are happy, doesn't your mind reaches out to you and say to drink to celebrate? When things are sad, your mind whispers to you that you need a little something to make it through. Even when you are just bored, your throat gets dry. You even dream of it, don't you?"

She shrugged as she took a spoon full. "Doesn't everyone?"

Bridget slowly shook her head. "Not everyone. Ask your father."

"So he's a freak!"

"No, he's a normie. Most people don't think like we do. They have control over alcohol. We don't. If we take it, then it will control us."

Juliet shook her head. "I really don't like people telling me that there is something wrong with me."

"It's just a gene. It's like being lactose intolerant to milk. You accept it."

"If it's just a gene then how come Siobhan wasn't an alcoholic? I saw her and she just sipped and pretended to drink like Dad."

Bridget shrugged. "I don't know. Why is my hair a shade redder? Why was she taller than me? Why were her shoes half a size smaller?"

"I always thought her hair color came in a bleach bottle."

"No, hers was natural. I used to dye mine to match hers." Bridget put her bowl in the sink.

Andrew came in, dressed for work. "How are you two doing?"

Bridget smiled and kissed him. "I think we're OK."

"Have fun," Juliet said, then took another spoon full.

"Call me if you need anything."

Juliet silently hid behind her bowl until the elevator had taken Andrew away. "I heard all that allergy stuff from the old doctor's opinion in the Big Book and I don't want any AA bullshit. It just doesn't work for me."

Bridget shrugged. "So you're just going to do things your way?"

Juliet nodded. "Why shouldn't I? It's my life?"

"So how is it working out for you?" Bridget eyed Juliet closely. "Are you happy? Do you feel at peace with yourself? Do you like yourself?"

Juliet's face flushed with anger. "If I were away from all these questions and hassles and some place where I could get my head together I would be fine."

"Ooh, you don't like yourself. Tell me the truth. How often do you think of killing yourself?"

"That's a sick question."

"Juliet, I have been where you are. When I look at you, I see the same look in your eyes that I had in mine so I know just what you're thinking."

"You can't understand." Juliet chose her words very carefully. Whatever she said now would go right to Andrew and if she did admit it then they would make it harder to do it.

Bridget shook her head, remembering the pain of those years. "Yes I can and do understand. I'd eaten the medicine chest twice by the time I was your age."

Juliet sat and breathed, trying not to show what she felt. It would be better not to answer than to give Bridget anything more she could use against her."

"Sweetie, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. You keep struggling to be in control of your life and to live your life the way you want to but the more you struggle to control your life, the more miserable you become."

Juliet finished her bowl and then put it in the sink. "Aren't you in control of your life?"

Bridget shook her head. "Oh no! When I am in control of my life I make a complete mess of it. I had to give up thinking that I must have power and control over my life and give that control up to God."

"Oh great, it's the God thing again. Maybe it works for you but not me. I am not a Catholic. I am not Christian and if there is some kind of a God out there I know for a fact that it hates me so I hate it."

Bridget rinsed the bowls and added them to what's in the dishwasher. "Let's go clean out my closet and I'll tell you what life was like for me when I was your age."

That took Juliet by surprise. "Why now?"

"You hearing what I was like when I was your age must be better than arguing and I thought you might want some of the clothes."

She had always been curious but had never known how to ask and the thought of free designer clothes always was tempting. "Awesome. I'm game."

Bridget began going through the closet, wondering how much the clothes she was pulling out had originally cost. The first to get tossed on the bed was an Alexander Mc Queen formal gown. It had a striped dog collar around the neck and the dress was a purple chiffon thing held from metal hoops suspended by chains from the collar. It no doubt cost thousands but Bridget thought it was ugly, weird and uncomfortable. It reminded her far too much of her pole dancing days, something she wanted to put out of her head forever. "So how do I start?"

Juliet thought as she looked at the dress on the bed and then neatly tucked into a suit bag. "The beginning, I guess."

Bridget nodded as she pulled down an alligator scale looking purple dress by Dries van Noten and put it too on the bed. "I was born in America. In Brooklyn. Dadaí was born on Inis Thiar in County Gallaway and he was a cop, Sargent Conán Kelly."

"Conan, like Conan the barbarian?"

"More like Conan O'Brien on late night TV. The name means wolf."

"In Irish?"

"Very. Dadaí told us that we were FBI and CIA."

"FBI CIA?"

"Full Blooded Irish and Catholic Irish in America."

"But Siobhan didn't seem Irish at all."

"Siobhán was so ashamed of being Irish she pronounced her name like an Englishman would. It's _shih VAWN_ not _SHIB on_."

Juliet nodded, understanding that fully.

A Christian Dior red strapless one with an odd bow managed to keep a place in the closet, at least for the moment. The Proenza Schouler black dress with full sleeves definitely was a keeper and the funky Emilio Pucci Egyptian looking one with a bare left shoulder she'd worn to that dreadful cocktail party with the dead body in the trunk might survive. "My mother was from Dunquin in County Kerry. Her name was Maureen FitzSimons. She had just come on over and seemed to be a timid, beautiful old country girl. They were married and soon bought a house in Little Ireland, Woodlawn in the Bronx. A couple of years later …"

Juliet had no interest in the dresses. She took a suit bag and carefully put them in for disposal. "They had you two."

"No, they had my brother, Rónán."

"You have a brother?"

"More on my brother later. Siobhan and I came along seven years after Rónán. We were accidents. I popped right out but she came near to dying with Siobhan and finally had to get an emergency C section. That's why we're born on different days."

Bridget pulled out an extra small Herve Leger signature bandage dress with black bow detail and one black shoulder strap and one light gray shoulder strap. She shook her head and carefully put it on the bed. "I was a nervous child. Siobhan was always the more adventurous one and she always had a wicked temper. I fell and stained her favorite dress and she punished me by killing Goldie my hamster with a cigarette lighter.

Juliet was disgusted but somehow not surprised. "That's sick." She put aside the bandage dress. It still had the original tags on and it definitely had possibilities.

"A black Chanel cashmere ribbed dress and a black Gucci with long sleeve and an open back definitely were keepers but a dark orange sleeveless Bottega Veneta dress with draped sides and asymmetrical neckline went on the bed. "Oh she did seem to hate the little animals. But she was mother's favorite and could do no wrong. I was Dadaí's girl and she was Mamaí's little angel, even if there were whispers around the neighborhood about what she did to stray cats."

Juliet's eyes widened as she could just imagine what that meant as she looked at the orange Bottega Veneta before putting it in the suit bag.

Bridget pulled out a blue wool blend Chloe skirt suit that was as pale as snow. It looked like it had only been worn a few times, but Bridget remembered it all too well. It was what Siobhan had worn when she first came to New York. She put it in the suit bag herself, not even letting Juliet touch it. "Our home was what you would now call utterly dysfunctional. On a good night, my dear Da would come home after duty two sheets to the wind. On a bad one, he was stone cold sober. Those were the nights I knew to stay in my room. I couldn't count the number of times he smashed things or punched holes in the wall. But I loved him so, and I started making sure there was a bottle waiting for him in the mailbox. Ma was worse. Everything had to be just the right way with her and when it was not there was no forgiveness in this world or the next for your crimes. Da couldn't stand up to her. He was a big man and strong and he carried a gun but she was too much for him."

She tossed an Alaia multicolor patent leather print cropped jacket on the bed but handed her a peach suede Alexander Mcqueen blazer with exposed stitching. "I loved my mother and I loved Siobhan, but I was terrified of them both. They were two of a kind, full of anger and the need to control everyone and everyone. I tried to do the things they did and to act as nice and pretty and proper as Siobhan but I just couldn't keep it up for long."

Juliet pulled the blazer to the side, not quite decided. "So when did you first use?"

"Oh I'll never forget. It was Christmas dinner when we were ten and Rónán thought it would be funny to get us two babies drunk so he gave us each a glass of wine. Siobhan hardly touched hers. She said it tasted yucky. Rónán laughed, but I drank mine and hers too. Oh that was wonderful. It was the Big O to me. For the first time in my life, those voices inside my head that told me how bad and worthless I was got quiet. For the first time in my life, I got right." She pulled down a powder blue Balenciaga quilted silk sleeveless blouse and gave it to Juliet with a smile. "The next day I went upstairs and hid under Rónán's bed with that pint bottle for the mailbox. They found me passed out in my own vomit. They told me that it should be a lesson to me, and it was. I liked what I had found and I wanted more of this."

"I remember a few months later I was in my fifth grade sex ed class. The video was on alcohol and drugs and it said that alcohol was a central nervous system depressant. That was the stupidest thing. I didn't feel depressed or tired when I drank. I felt right. Without it, I was scared and miserable. They were all thinking at me. It's so loud. I felt like everyone is screaming in my ears." Bridget also put a gold sequined Proenza Schoulder Blouse and a taupe cotton Margiela short sleeved shirt with rips, tears, and stitching courtesy of the designer on the bed along with a duffel bag. "Pack these in the gym bag please."

"Too ugly?"

Bridget smiled and nodded. "I had just one little problem. Whenever I drank, I didn't want to stop. I just had to have more. I could not give a crap about the consequences of whatever could possibly happen because the Hell inside of me overwhelmed any possible consequence. I just wanted to die. My life was Hell and was getting nothing but worse. Anyone would have to drink if they were me. Ma was insane to the day she cut her wrists in the bath tub. Siobhan was caught burning down the church because she said the Priest tried to … well you know … of course I didn't believe it then, nobody did but with all the lawsuits since I don't know any more. Everyone hated her after that, but she was still my sister and I had to love her. The worst was Rónán. I adored my brother but Da found him overdosed on heroin in the bathroom."

Juliet packed the two blouses away. "He OD'd and died?"

She nodded. "Seven years later in a burned out building in Spanish Harlem, gaunt and emaciated from uncontrolled AIDS, they found his body. He'd been beaten to death in a drug deal gone wrong. But that was the night he started dying right in front of us an inch at a time." She stopped and looked away, unable to forget what he had become.

"Are you alright," Juliet asked. "Should we stop?"

"No," Bridget finally said. "Let's get this done. She handed Juliet a teal green Oscar de la Renta sleeveless ruched neck blouse and a pink cotton Comme Des Garçons sleeveless top that still had the Bloomingdale's tags followed by a like new Chanel burgundy sheer sleeveless button up blouse. The Chanel was pulled aside by Juliet. The rest were carefully rolled up and placed in the gym bag. "These are too old woman looking."

So far behind the times, Bridget thought. Those blouses were a year old, positively antique. "But Siobhan made Hell even worse when she got her revenge on old lady Lagash after she said that dopers have no souls."

"What did she do?"

"You don't want to know. But my life seemed to get worse and worse. With alcohol I could do the normal things people do. I could get up in the morning and get out of bed. I could interact with people without wanting to murder them. It allowed me to just be human. I could not keep away from it. I need it to function, to be able to breathe, to be a normal person at school. But there was one thing I hadn't learned. Normal people don't have to drink to act normal."

She pulled out Siobhan's scarf collection starting with an immaculate Multi-color, floral by Hermes. "Do you want any of these?"

Juliet shook her head and carefully packed them away in the gym bag along with the blouses.

"I have a mind that tells me I can drink. I have a body that says MORE NOW and I had a spirit that kept telling me I am a worthless piece of shit and I wasn't even worthy of breathing. I could be dry for a month or more and that obsession always beat me. It said it was alright this time and how much I needed it this time." Bridget pulled out a pair of black patent leather Prada gloves and tossed them on the bed. "Here's a great story. Thanksgiving time when I was fourteen. I had been busted for shoplifting a fifth of Wild Turkey and Da sent me off to Saint Jude rehab up in Amsterdam. He had to get two uniformed officers to take me all the way up to there in a squad car in hand cuffs and I had to be tied in a four way restraint to a bed but they had me and they kept me for six weeks. When I got back, my dad had locked up all the liquor in the house in a big steel safe. I signed a contract that I would stay clean. I even really meant it. But I couldn't help thinking about it. I hadn't had a drink in almost two months but I still had the voices in my head that kept telling me to drink. One night in January they told me exactly how I was going to safely get just a couple and relax for a little while with a friend. I climbed out the window of my room, climbed down to the first story and walked about a mile in the snow in January to my friend's house. I climbed up into her room, we split a bottle of Jack Daniels and watched I think it was Pump Up the Volume and played some Nintendo. Then I managed to sneak back down and started walking back but it was like two in the morning and it was unbelievably freezing. I ended up passed out in the snow, half frozen to death. You'd think this would make anyone not try this again but two weeks later when the coast was clear I did it again and ended up just the same way."

As Juliet tried on the Goth gloves, she asked herself whether she would do that for a drink. The more she looked inside herself, the more she knew it fit her as well as the gloves fit her hands.

"This time would be different, or I needed it. I kept saying next time I would just have a couple but no matter how hard I tried I could not control the amount that I drank. Then I just started to say I didn't care and I drank to find oblivion." Bridget held up a Comme des Garcons black long sleeved cardigan that had a small heart patch with googly eyes. "Is it you?"

Juliet smiled and took it eagerly. "It's cute."

"Part of me wanted to stop," Bridget said as she pulled out an oversized magenta belted sweater by Balenciaga. "Really it did. I thought if I could control things I wouldn't have to drink. I said anybody would drink if they lived my life. I thought if my boobs were a size bigger and I was just five pounds skinnier then maybe everything would be OK but it never was. I was polishing the brass on the Titanic like Tyler said in Fight Club, and the whole world I had created really was all over but I just wouldn't see it."

Juliet pondered the sweater, temporarily pulling it aside.

Bridget pulled out a duffel bag and then began tossing out shoe after shoe from mules to stacked heel ankle straps and peep-Toed stilettos and d'Orsay pumps and everything in between. Many were still in the original boxes, never worn. "Thanks to the police union we had really good medical benefits. I had a shrink. I was in rehab. I was in group therapy where I learned I had a very angry inner child. I had the best meds modern medicine could prescribe, and I took them. I would even act sicker so I could get more meds and it still wasn't enough. I would take their meds and drink too. I even got sent to a place where had me drink beer that had Syrup of ipecac in it. I got sick but I kept on drinking it so they made me smell alcohol and then gave me electric shocks. They called it 'Aversion therapy.' They gave me Naltrexone. Jesus, Mary and Joseph it made my stomach sick, but I drank on it anyway and I swear it made pot better."

Juliet was fascinated. She was learning fascinating things from Bridget and pondered trying a few of them. She also was fascinated by the boots. She may have hated the Temperly London gold web top and Lela Rose crepe gown but Siobhan did have some very nice boots. "You really don't want them anymore?"

"They don't fit. These always were tight. Now that I am pregnant they are positively painful."

Juliet was surprised. "Your feet get bigger when you're pregnant?"

Bridget nodded. "I think I am almost a whole size and those high heels make my calves cramp really bad now."

"That's trippy." She tried on a pair of snake skin boots."

Bridget lay on the bed and watched. "The judges would make me do AA when I got caught but it never took hold on me. Finally I figured out why. What I saw was bullshit. Every time they told me to just come to meetings. In Reno I even got a sponsor. She gave me this really ratty copy of the Big Book that was like stained and messed up and told me to read the stories in the back to see if I identified with them. They were nothing like me so I couldn't identify so I figured that meant I wasn't really an alcoholic or an addict. 'Just do 90 meetings in 90 days,' she said. 'Keep bringing your body to meetings and your sobriety will follow. Keep the plug in the jug. And don't do the fourth step for at least two years or you'll start using again. Instead, just shut up and keep coming back to meetings.' They were a bunch of older than dirt chain smoking Sterno drinkers. I was young and cool and never had a legal drink in my life. I went in there wearing a Misfits T shirt, safety pins in my ears and a chain belt and my hair was half orange and half green so I knew I had nothing in common with them. Worse, I was ashamed of them. I'm not sure why I wasn't ashamed to get down on my knees and puke my guts out in the toilet but I was ashamed to stand up and pray with them."

Shoes, shoes, shoes, that joy of a woman's life and whatever Juliet might think of Siobhan she undeniably had excellent taste. Some like the Ralph Lauren bridle pattern print high heeled wellies Juliet dropped right in the bag but others gained her attention. She favored exotic leathers like ostrich hide and crocodile skin but sampled others like the breathtakingly sophisticated Louis Vuittons flamingo sandals in calf leather and art deco high boots in calf and baby goat suede. When Juliet finished putting the rejects in the duffel bag, Juliet asked "What now?"

"Go look and see if anything absolutely grabs you. Maybe you can sweet talk me out of it."

As Juliet looked at the collection Bridget just relaxed her back and continued as she felt Junior swimming and splashing inside her. "So each time I took another geographical cure and tried to clean myself up it was only a matter of time until I got messed up again. But something different happened in Montana. Every time before, I told myself I wanted to control my drinking and I had the will power to do it. The problem was that my self-will to not use couldn't overcome my own self-will to use and every time I did finally have just that one drink the craving would hit and I would be lost again. Only in Montana when I turned to that simple God of love I knew at my first communion did I finally begin to find peace."

Juliet picked a black and grey leather sleeveless dress by Bally and held it up. "What do you think?"

"It will definitely go with the black patent leather gloves and boots. I think there's a matching whip back there too."

Juliet laughed and put it with her stash.

A couple of hours later they had finished getting rid of the unwanted inventory at Michael's consignment shop on Madison Avenue and East 80th and Bridget was packing the gym bag and suit bag neatly in the duffel. "Now that I have left behind the clothes that I don't want, what would any sensible woman do next?"

"Go buy more clothes?" Juliet began stalking a Marc Jacobs grey leather skirt that was only $275.

"Exactly," but Bridget put the skirt back. "But I need clothes for me."

"This skirt won't fit you to a tee?"

"Not with my rapidly expanding waist line it won't."

Juliet pulled an Alexander Wang distressed kid suede jacket off another rack. "It's so you."

Bridget held it up. "Too big for you and I think it will get too tight for me."

"What about after Junior?"

She tried it on, as near as she could. The bottom button already couldn't be fastened. "It's darling but too tight in the chest and I'm only going to grow there. And I won't be able to nurse in it."

"How long will you be nursing?"

"The World Health Organization recommends two years. By then this will be quite out of fashion. No, we need to go where I can find clothes to fit my needs."

Their next stop was Jane's Exchange on 3rd St between Avenue A and Avenue B. It was a maternity and children's clothes consignment store. Bridget pulled out a detailed shopping list. Three loose fitting large top blouses, three maternity overalls, three pairs of maternity jeans, one maternity cardigan sweater and three maternity dresses, all with sleeves. One dress she found was pink and white flowered, one was black and with a stretch cowl neck and one was a frilly royal blue Victorian style dress. She also grabbed a black tankini swim suit and three T shirts. One said future New York Jets kicker, one had a generic "Baby on board" but it looked like new and was on super markdown and one was an incredibly lucky find of a baby in the womb kicking a soccer ball. Other items Juliet picked like a cute red and blue romper were of no interest. Not even the maternity wedding dresses Juliet held up could draw her attention.

"How about some lunch," Bridget said as she stuffed the clothes in the duffel bag.

Juliet shrugged. It was almost one.

They walked towards Steinberg's Deli, Juliet toting the duffel bag. "Isn't it going to be weird to go back to where you worked and Siobhan …"

"I want to see my friends. So, what do you want for lunch?"

It had been a month since Bridget had been in Steinberg's deli but it still looked the same. Several customers waved and said welcome back but Sophie left the register and gave Bridget a big hug. "We miss you. How are you?" She looked sadly at the glasses and healing scars and not so surreptitiously checked Bridget's hand for a ring and then finally smiled at the distinctly bigger belly. "Everything OK down there?"

Bridget smiled. "Yes. All the important things are well. Junior is getting bigger by the day. Juliet is well and Andrew is well."

Moe stepped out from behind the sandwich counter. "Welcome, welcome. What brings you to our end of the city?"

"I was giving Juliet a little lesson on shopping. We were at Jane's Exchange."

Sophie smiled. "I thought a Park Avenue woman would be buying at Bloomingdale's."

"That is the easy way but I have lessons to teach her."

Bridget ordered the Kasha Varnishkas and a Dr. Brown celery tonic. Juliet had never heard of either and ordered a turkey on white with extra pickles and a diet Pepsi.

Bridget tucked into her plate of buckwheat and whole wheat farfalle noodles made with fried onions and Sam's secret home-made chicken broth. She smiled. It was good. "How is your sandwich?"

"It's OK. I was hungry."

Bridget pulled another sheet of paper from her purse. It had one line on it, her lunch order. "I had done a lot of thinking about what I did and did not want. Healthy whole grains and great taste. Did you think about what you ordered?"

Juliet shrugged. "I don't even know what half of it is."

"I will teach you how to make it all. We'll have fun together."

Juliet nodded and smiled but inside wasn't sure if she liked that idea or not. Instead she took another bite of her sandwich.

"You're welcome to try my kasha."

"Next time." Juliet looked at her. "Look I know this is all part of some big lesson you're trying to teach me but I have no idea what it is."

Bridget nodded. "For my body, I have traded in what didn't work for me as I am for what does. I listened to myself for what I needed, made a list and then went and found it."

"OK."

"Now you need to do exactly that, but for what is in you."

Juliet stopped in the middle of crunching a potato chip. "What?"

"The God you know is evil. It's not going to work for you so you need to trade it in on one that will."

Juliet resumed eating her potato chips. "But I told you I don't want to be Catholic."

"Then don't. But you need to find who or what your Higher Power is. And that spiritual journey starts with a shopping list."

"That sounds totally weird. A shopping list?"

Bridget nodded. "Uh huh, a shopping list. Would you like a pen and paper or the iPad?"

"Here, now?"

"Do you have a better place and time?"

"OK, the iPad."

Bridget pulled the iPad out of her purse and took it out of its case. "Wipe the potato chip grease off your hands first, please."

"Yes, mother."

Bridget gave her some space and went and chatted with Sophie and Moe but when she came back Juliet waved the iPad around and said "This is goofy."

"No, it's entirely serious. You know and I know that your own will and discipline doesn't keep you clean. But the day I surrendered myself to be a living testimony to a loving God of his power and to do his will if he would relieve me of the burden of myself I began to be free."

"What if I refuse?"

Bridget shrugged. "Nobody will force you. You have to make your own decisions, find your own God and make your own surrender. But we both know Andrew will try to run your life and keep you dry by whatever means are necessary until he can no longer legally force you."

"So it's God or two years of him running my life?"

"It could be as little as two years. After you're eighteen he still could do legal actions to have you declared mentally incompetent. He does have the money to try and you don't have the money to defend yourself."

"That's quite a threat."

"No, that's love. It might not be love the way you want it to be but he does love you and he only wants to keep you alive and safe."

"This is ridiculous. I can make you happy by saying something bogus or I can have Dad on my back. Why can't I live my own life?"

"Sweetie, you can do whatever you want, but for every action there is a consequence. If you continue to live your life the way you have lived it in the past then you probably will get more of the same in the future."

"What if I run away?"

"Been there, done that. The streets are mean. You have no idea. They killed Rónán."

Juliet thought for a moment. Somehow she could believe Bridget now, at least about running away not being a solution. "I still don't know about the whole god thing." Somehow her mind went back to Bridget helping her as she was retching from taking too many of the wrong pills, back when she was still Siobhan and what seemed like so long ago. She wasn't ashamed to puke with her but why was she so ashamed to pray with her? "I keep feeling like I am going to get killed in a pogrom every time I go to an AA meeting in a church. I hate crosses and those Jesus pictures with the heart on the outside are gross."

Bridget nodded. "Then don't do that. Find the God of your understanding. You are not Catholic. Tell me, are you Jewish?"

Juliet thought. "I guess maybe sort of but no. I hate that perverted, evil parent in the sky."

"Then you need to find within your heart the loving, forgiving God that will help you just the way you are. Hold on a minute." Bridget got up and went through the "employees only" door.

A few moments later, Bridget waved at Juliet from the kitchen in chef's whites and Sam sat at the table. "So, I understand you have some questions about the Holy one of Israel."

"Are you a rabbi?"

"No, I am a cook. But I know what it is to be a Jewish father and to love my wife and my son."


	72. Sampson's Haircut

**Sampson's Haircut**

As she lay back on the exam table with the young Arab woman doctor tapping on her stomach, she had to admit that for once Lillian Hassler was right. This prison really was better than the last one. The food here at Manhattan Psychiatric Center was actually sometimes edible and they had something akin to doctors and they had MEDS, oh glorious meds! Three times a day she was given a little paper cup with her pills and she gladly took them.

Of course there were bad parts. She needed a guard to go through any door. Even in the exam room there was the ever-present guard and she had no idea just how anti-Semitic the doctor was. It could be very dangerous if she found out. But the worst part was the other prisoners. All of them were really crazy. Still, she had a chance here.

"What is seven times six," Dr. Aslami said, probing around.

Catherine thought for a moment and then said "Why are you asking me?" She knew to always answer any question with a question if you didn't know the answer.

"Just keeping you relaxed," the doctor said. "What is six plus nine?"

That was silly, Catherine thought. Math was definitely not relaxing, especially at the moment. She tried to figure it out. It wasn't coming. Then she tried again. "Twenty?" She definitely wasn't enjoying it, but she had to not sound crazy. "What's wrong with me," she said to the doctor who was now looking at the palms of her hands.

"I think it's too many years of good living."

The psych nurse kept a straight face. It wasn't easy. He had seen those symptoms in many patients over the years and didn't need to do any fancy diagnostic tests. He knew the breath of the dead when he smelled it. "Too much good living" was hardly an accurate or complete description of what caused Catherine's maladies.

"I never had problems before going to that horrible place and the living was definitely not at all good there.

"It definitely had a lot of salt and fat you really don't need," said the doctor. "Have you been eating your food here?"

Catherine shook her head.

"Isn't it good?"

"It's OK. But I'm just not hungry."

"You need to eat to keep your strength up. You are accumulating fluid in your abdomen."

Catherine looked up from the exam bed, alarmed at the sound of it. "Is it dangerous?"

The doctor thought for a moment, carefully weighing her answer. "We don't want it and it can become a problem. I am going to put you on a couple of more pills, Rifaximin which is an antibiotic and a disaccharide pill to stimulate the natural ammonium production cycle. You'll get kind of loosy goosy but you complained about constipation."

"Thank you, doctor. It's been really painful. I'll take all my pills I promise."

"Good girl. The other medicine won't be quite as easy."

Catherine looked up suspiciously. "What is it?"

"I'm going to have to put you on a no added salt diet. Fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains. It's the Hollywood model diet. You'll look really hot in a few months I promise. Now I need to give you a little poke to draw some blood. We want to make sure everything is good, alright?"

Catherine nodded. "Are you sure it will improve my appearance? I just didn't recognize myself. I look so thin and awful."

"Trust me. I'm your doctor."

"Maybe you could get me in a yoga class."

Dr. Aslami smiled and looked up at the burly psych nurse and the nurse nodded back, getting in position in case Catherine did anything. Doing blood work always was more than a little dangerous around psych patients. If there was a moment when they were most likely to panic, it was when that needle was about to hit their arm. "Oh, that's a very good idea. I'll speak to the director about it."

Out of Catherine's view with his burly arms ready to toss her in a hammer lock, the nurse rolled his eyes. He knew there would be no yoga class.

"All done now," Dr. Aslami said. "You can go off and have fun. I'll tell you when I get the results back, OK?"

Catherine nodded.

"Help her sit up and off the exam bed."

The Incredible Hulk in a nurse's uniform said "Let's go to the TV room. Dr. Phil will be on soon" as he lifted her off the exam table and stood her up.

As the door closed and left her alone, Dr. Aslami sat in front of her computer and typed her clinical notes into Catherine's file. "The patient was seen this morning for complaints of inability to sleep, nausea and food poisoning. Her weight has dropped to 127 and her blood pressure was 149 over 108 with pulse at 92 beats a minute and she seemed short of breath.

Patient presents as forgetful and confused. She was unable to do mental addition of single digit numbers. Her personal appearance was poor even for this facility and she had scratches on her skin. She said that she scratched because she itched.

Patient has caput medusa, ascites and edema from cirrhosis as well as exaggerated tendon reflexes and marked yellowing of the whites of the eyes accompanied by milder yellowing of the skin. Complaints of accompanying weakness and indigestion as well.

Given her documented decades of alcoholism, cirrhosis is the most likely diagnostic.

I have drawn blood for serum bilirubin, serum creatinine and PT/INR for determining the predictive MELD score to give the probability for her three month mortality. No matter how bad they are, given her confinement here and her criminal history as well as her recent history of substance abuse a liver transplant seems quite unlikely. The most reasonable course to extend her life would seem to be transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt."

Andrew sat in his office, updating a Power Point presentation on Martin Charles's incredible margin for profitability and how it had beaten all the other fund groups. Normally that would be immensely pleasurable, but something happened that bothered him during his haircut appointment.

It wasn't that he disliked going for a haircut. Normally Andrew enjoyed the calmness of his routine. Unfortunately for him he had none of it for months. With all the chaos from Siobhan and Juliet, he had remained untrimmed for six weeks and he knew it showed. Today, the world had seemed stable enough to schedule an appointment at Delilah's Hair Salon, conveniently located in the ground floor of his office building. He had actually been looking forward to it as he went downstairs with a printout of a paper entitled _Discrete Fourier Transform Filters as Business Cycle Extraction Tools_ and sat on the long wooden bench with the other immaculately suited businessmen and waited.

When his turn came, Rosalinda took his jacket and tie, sat him down and carefully covered him up. Then she showed him that the back of his head had begun to go white.

"We can just dye it," she said. "Nobody will ever know."

But Andrew wouldn't have any of it and told her that was a man. He would not dye or bleach his hair like a vain woman. Unfortunately with his roots being so grey he couldn't keep his old style either so she gave him a number four buzz cut.

He looked at himself in his bathroom, brushing it back and forth. He could deal with looking like a member of the Royal Marines. What bothered him was how much the short hair made him look like his father when he was growing up.

He had heard of people whose hair suddenly started to grow white from fright or stress and thought back over the events of the last three or four months. Getting shot. Having Catherine try to kill them. Losing the firm and come uncomfortably close to losing it all and going to jail. Finding out Siobhan was sleeping with another man. Having someone shot in his apartment. Finding out he wasn't sleeping with Siobhan. Having Siobhan come gunning for him. Having Juliet almost die and coming to terms with the fact that he had a raging alcoholic for a daughter. Finding out he would be a father – of the woman who looked like his cheating wife and he had been sleeping with but wasn't his wife and then having this one almost get murdered by his wife and having his wife commit suicide. By then Siobhan's exit from the mortal sphere was a relief.

He still loved Siobhan, but he hated her so much. It was so strange he began to laugh. He had earned every one of those white hairs.

The intercom on his desk phone rang. It was Claudine. "Andrew, you have a call from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. Do you want to take it?"

She couldn't step into his office to announce that call, he thought. Just for the sake of not looking any crazier than he was to the firm. "I'll take it," he said, closing the door so he could pretend to be acting as if he were in privacy and putting it on speaker phone so the rest of the office could listen in.

"Hello, Andrew Martin here." He sat back in his chair.

"Hello. My name Dr. Aslami. I am a staff doctor at the Manhattan Psychiatric Facility. I'm calling about your wife."

"Ex-wife. VERY ex-wife."

"Hmm, I'll have to update the file. She lists you as her husband and as the contact."

"We divorced ten years ago. But I expect you're not calling to update her social contacts."

"No. I just got through with a physical on her. She seems to be in advanced cirrhosis."

He laughed, thinking of the pile of vodka bottles she kept hidden around the house. Under the kitchen sink, at the bottom of the dirty laundry, in drawers and in the garage. "That hardly surprises me."

"I don't think she has much time."

"How little?"

There was a pause on the line. "I don't have the lab results but I've been doing this for years. I'd guess three to six months." She paused. "So many of these patients die alone. It's really sad."

"She tried to kill me and my wife and she held my daughter at gunpoint."

"I know. Her criminal record is a part of her file. But before she's dead if there's anyone who might want to say their goodbyes then please tell them."

"She was sleeping with my former partner."

Dr. Aslami sighed. "Please tell him. She hasn't gotten any visitors."

"Her. I will try to get hold of her."

"Thank you," the doctor said with a weary, frustrated tone.


	73. Sampson's Haircut - 073 - Addendum

This is material I should have had at the end of the previous chapter. It will be made into one chapter in the rewrite. Does it fit? Does it work? You the reviewers must tell me.

"Oh my gawd," Juliet said, looking at Andrew's incredibly short hair as he peeked in the kitchen after coming home. "That is just so not you."

Andrew smiled. "It does look rather like I've gone from a toff to a roundhead."

Juliet had thought that by now she understood Andrew's English, but that one left her completely puzzled.

"It's the same haircut my dad had," Bridget said, looking at it closely as chopped garlic.

"But he was a cop," Juliet said as she was furiously rolling neat dough balls into lumpy torn bits. "Dad looks like a … Republican … now."

Andrew smirked. "That's dirty."

Bridget turned to Juliet. "You need to roll them thinner or they'll come out dry."

"How? These are already so thin they break."

"You can do it," she said, stepping away from the cutting board. "You have to keep the rolling pin and the board dusted with flour or it will stick."

"I did," Juliet said defensively.

"Every time," she said firmly. "Now re-dust the rolling pin and board, roll it back up to a ball and try over."

"What's for dinner," Andrew asked, smelling the exotic spices.

"Indian tonight. Chana Masala and chapati," Bridget said, watching Juliet's rolling. "It will be good."

"And when it isn't, then it's Chinese," Juliet quipped.

Andrew smiled. Better dreadful Chinese takeout in peace then the finest pot of cawl and y nadolig cake eaten with strife, he thought. "How can I help?"

"Oh just pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable. It will be all done before you know it."

He did just that, taking off his tie and suit jacket and slipping off his shoes. "You should take off your shoes and relax too. I can help."

"They are off," Bridget said, wiggling bare toes.

"Oh? You mean you're barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen?"

"And proud of it."

He gave her a hug and a kiss as he got himself a glass of water. It was then and there that Andrew decided to definitely not tell Bridget and Juliet about Catherine's predicted demise. As long as things continued to improve, there was no reason to rock the boat.


	74. Panic Attacks

**Panic Attacks**

It was a beautiful late spring day, bright and sunny and warm. She was crossing the street when a marauding bicycle messenger nailed her and pushed her down. Her head hit the asphalt. She was lying there, face lying against the gravel embedded in the street, feeling every place it hurt, wondering what was broken.

A man with a straw hat and a big handlebar mustache bent down to her as she lay in the road and offered her a glass full of something amber. "Here. You look like you could really use a drink."

"No," she said. "I am a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I do not drink."

With that, she woke up and she felt marvelous. So many times she'd woken up in an utter panic when she had dreamed of using or drinking. So many times she had woken in an utter panic momentarily sure it was real and wondering why she had just thrown so many months of hard work away. For the first time, she had turned down the drink. Perhaps she really would reach that state where she no longer had the incessant desire to use. Perhaps that would come one day but it wasn't her biggest worry. She felt her belly and then got down upon her knees and prayed to God to have the strength to squeeze this baby out completely clean. Then she prayed for Andrew and especially for Juliet and asked what she should be doing to help them.

Andrew had already gone to work. It was past eight. She put on Siobhan's Yves Delorme silhouette bathrobe in powdered pink and went see what Juliet was up to. She found her sitting in the dark and crying on the living room floor, still in her pajamas, clutching her red 30 day chip and drawn up into a little ball. Bridget sat down next to her, trying to put her arm around her. "What is it?"

Juliet shrugged her off, clutching the chip. "I just can't take it anymore."

Bridget looked at the aluminum chip she was clutching so dearly. "It will get better."

"I feel like I am dying when they hit. My heart just pounds like it's going to jump out of my chest and I am choking and can hardly breathe and I just shake and shake and shake."

Bridget remembered that feeling all too clearly. Weeks of feeling neither sick nor well in witness protection in Wyoming, waiting for her mind to slowly come back. "Breathe, breathe deep with your belly. Remember, take slow and deep breaths. You're doing the right thing just sitting down and waiting for it to pass."

"I was looking at the hallway mirror and as I saw myself I saw her ghost."

"She's not dead. It wasn't a ghost."

"OK I saw her not ghost. But it was her looking at me and I just felt so afraid like she was going to reach down and draw me back and I was going to be a little kid in Florida again."

"It can't happen. She's locked up and you're safe here. You just saw an odd angle in your face that reminded you of her."

"I know that but that scares me so much. I look in the mirror and see her face. I don't want to be her."

She tried again to get close to Juliet and hold her. This time, she allowed it and Juliet felt so sweaty. "Think what it is for me. I look in the mirror and see Siobhan looking back. Believe me I understand. You have to have faith that with God in control you can live your life differently. Relax. Think of God's love wrapping around you like a blanket. Feel the warmth of God's love."

"I don'."

"Remember the walking nightmares? You haven't had them in over a week. The panic attacks will pass too."

"But everything just feels so bad. The whole world smells bad and tastes bad."

Bridget held her close, feeling how she was trembling and how fast her heart was racing. "Let's pray and then get something to eat."

Juliet shook her head. "I don't want to pray."

"Are you desperate?"

"YES! I feel like I'm going to die."

"Then it's time to start reading that prayer on the chip your hand."

Resigned, Juliet turned her 30 day chip over and silently read that so familiar prayer on the back as Bridget followed along. "God grant me the _serenity_ to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

Juliet rubbed her aching stomach, feeling absolutely exhausted. "These panic attacks are just beating me to death. I just feel like I am dying."

Bridget shrugged with a sad smile. "I know those panic attacks so well. They made me feel like I was going to die. I know that feeling of utter desperation. I thought the fear alone was going to kill me when I saw Shaylene murdered."

"So you went to the FBI. That was an obvious decision."

"Even after I went to the FBI and was taken to NA, I still had to choose between going back out and keep on using and die or try this. I was afraid of all the pain inside my head of living life straight but didn't want to die and I knew deep down inside that even Bodaway Macawi didn't get me that using equals death. Alcoholics and addicts do stupid shit and we get into bad places and in with really bad people."

"I'd go to the FBI too. I understand your doing what they told you to do so they'd keep you in protective custody. But why did you think this stuff would keep you clean?"

"Like I said, I was desperate. It was a total crapshoot. I had seen so many people die really bad that I had realized that drinking or using equals death so after I detoxed in Wyoming I did something I'd never done before and took the steps completely seriously because I knew this was the last house on the block and if I didn't follow the steps Malcolm told me I was going to die really badly. The first thing that helped me get over my fears was to accept that I am not God."

Juliet was taken aback. "Of course you're not god."

"But I was always playing God. I was always trying to control the situation. I was always making demands and I always had expectations and when they didn't happen I'd freak inside. Malcolm told me this Buddhist parable about a king who wanted to cover his kingdom in leather so it would always be soft to walk on. What he needed was to put the sandals on his own feet. To me that's exactly what the third step is all about. I wanted to change everyone around me to make me and when they didn't listen it was bad inside my head. I needed to make God my god and accept that I shouldn't put a question mark where God had put a period."

Juliet paused, thinking. "That's an interesting way of thinking about it. Rabbi Potek told me about accepting the Torah and that we should hear and do the law and being Holy to God."

"That's kind of it but I think it digs down even deeper. It's not just following God's laws. It's also accepting God's will. 'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.' You can be following God's law but for all the wrong reasons. I think a lot of it is because of your view of the world and your motivations."

"Part of me really wishes I could believe like you do. I don't want to go through my life miserable like this but part of me really hates the whole god idea. They say turn your will over to the god of your understanding and I am not at all sure I believe in god and if I do I sure don't understand it."

Bridget cast a faint smile. "Join the club. I don't understand God. I don't even try to understand God because I just confuse myself. All I could do was go back to the last time I was happy and had hope and that was when I was a little girl around the time of my first communion. I knew God loved me then."

"And you want me to follow god and you don't even understand god?"

Bridget nodded. "It's the only thing I've found that works for me. I tried over and over. When I try to fix me with me I am screwed. I can't think my own way through my own character defects and that's why I need to turn my will and my life over to the power of something greater than myself because the part of me that caused me my difficulties is still inside me. There's no way that I am going to be able to rationalize myself out of my own pain and my own short sightedness and my own fear."

"Why? Maybe, just maybe I buy that there is something different about me so I shouldn't drink. But why do I need a god?"

"You can try all the different ways to clean up the infection inside you but this is the only one that worked for me because my own mind created my selfishness and resentment and fear and it will defend them. It's this whole thing a psychedelic relic named Brother Eric at the NA group in Wyoming called Godly Sorrow and Sorrow of the Damned."

Juliet smiled at the name. "Brother Eric the psychedelic relic?"

"Oh yeah. He'd been clean for like fifteen years but he'd done everything for a long, long time and it showed. He had a long beard and drove a three million year old VW bug and he used to play the guitar. He was a trip and Godly Sorrow was one of the things he talked about in shares. I always had the Sorrow of the Damned because it got me off the hook of spiritual responsibility. Like if I am worthless and hopeless then I don't have to do anything. I kept me from having to feel what I had done in my spirit and of course I kept me from having to change."

"But I have changed. I have been clean for over a month. Why doesn't the pain just stop?"

"Your body is beginning to clean up but now we need to fix your mind and your spirit. You have like a festered and infected boil inside your spirit. Now we've got to get that puss out. I was just the same way. That started for me when I did my fourth step personal inventory with Malcolm. I learned the reason I did things was because I am full of self-centeredness, selfishness, dishonesty and fear, especially fear. Most of the things I did when I was using and a lot of the things I did when I was clean were driven by fear." She shuddered. "I know just how you felt."

"How could you know how bad I feel inside?"

"Because I was there. I hated it and I hated myself. My past would bang around inside my head and all my fears would get me and I just wanted to die. Before I understood that I was an addict with a disease I believed that I was a piece of crap and that I was the reason I was so miserable. I just wanted to die. But you don't have to spend a lost decade and go through all the pain I did, Sweetie." She looked at Juliet. "Are you beginning to come down? You seem less anxious."

"It's passing."

"Good. I'm hungry. Let's eat." Bridget rolled over and managed to stand and then took Juliet by the hand and led her to the kitchen. Once there, Juliet got out two frozen Strawberry waffles and popped them in the toaster oven and nuked instant cocoa as Bridget pulled out left over hummus, pita bread and carrot sticks from last night's dinner and orange juice.

As the frozen waffles warmed and Bridget pulled her breakfast out, she continued. "Brother Eric used to say that God gave us weaknesses so that we might become humble and that if we became humble and had faith in God and repented then he would make weak people strong. Or something like that. There is a big difference between accepting and reveling in your limits. I used to revel in my limitations. I thought I drank and used because I am limited. I lied and stole and manipulated people because I am limited. What I am talking about is accepting the limitations God gave me and being humbled by them and to grow closer to God as I struggle to overcome those limits. And the limit I reveled in the most to justify myself was fear.

As Juliet pulled out her cocoa and fetched the waffles the house phone rang. Bridget picked up the portable in the kitchen. "Hello."

"Hello, Siobhan," said an older woman's voice with a deep Welsh accent, her words carefully spoken and yet full of ice.

She knew the voice. Usually she'd just exchanged pleasantries and then handed the phone to Andrew and they would start talking away in Welsh and Bridget wouldn't have any clue what was going on from there. But she'd know Andrew wouldn't be home at this hour. "Hello Maudie. How are you? How is Eirwyn? How is Margaret? Is everything alright?"

"Grandmum," Juliet asked, excited and Bridget nodded back.

"We're just fine here, Siobhan. Eirwyn is out golfing but I was so worried about Andrew."

"He's not here. He's at the office." Bridget put the handset on speaker phone so they could both talk.

"How did he look this morning?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him."

"You didn't see him today?"

"No. I slept in late and sometimes he goes in early. But everything was good last night. Did you see him?"

Juliet shook her head as she stirred her cocoa. "No. I didn't get out of bed until a few minutes before you came out."

"Is that Juliet there?"

"Yes Grandmum. It's me."

"Why aren't you in school, girl?"

"Er, … it's that time and … sometimes it really hurts." She shrugged, hoping it sounded convincing.

"Maudie, why would you think something is wrong?"

"I just know it. He was so happy about a second wedding and then that just stopped. Dead silence. He wouldn't talk of it."

Bridget's face flushed with embarrassment. The words seemed to choke within her as she struggled not to dig herself into a deeper hole with more lies and yet not to tell the truth. "We had a really, really bad fight. I was afraid it was going to be the end. But we're doing much better now."

"Then he kept saying he'd call but didn't. He'd always dropped a quick Skype conference from the office so we could see each other and chat like he was there but for two weeks he was gone."

"It's the haircut," Juliet said.

"The haircut?"

"It makes him look like he belongs to the National Rifle Association."

"It's not THAT bad," Bridget said, correcting her. "It's like my daidí."

"Yes, but my Dad isn't Bruce Willis."

"Oh Maudie, she HATES that haircut. I can send him an e-mail at the office if it's urgent."

"No, I don't want to be any bother. Just call it mother's intuition but are you sure there's nothing wrong?"

Juliet stood up. "Grandmum, let me get Dad's iPad and Skype you from there."

"Thank you so much, Juliet. He gave us this fine machine and set it up and everything. He seemed so proud and happy and I just worry when suddenly he won't use it."

"I think he is embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?"

"His hair is turning grey. That's why he got the short haircut."

"Oh that's plain silly."

Bridget bit into a hummus laden carrot stick. "I agree. I'm hardly the prom queen any more either."

Maudie laughed. "I can't imagine you not the perfect beauty."

In a few moments, Juliet returned with the iPad and an elderly woman with dyed auburn hair and a computer gamer's headphone/mike combination on a face that far too much resembled Andrew's appeared on the screen and then quickly went into shock. "Oh my Lord," she gasped, looking at Bridget. "Your face! What happened to you?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"No!"

"I moved out for a couple of weeks after that fight. We were patching things up and making plans when there was a crazed intruder where I was staying. I was in the hospital for … I'm not sure. About two weeks."

"That's terrible. Did he violate you? "

"She got him," Juliet said.

"She what?"

"I had a hammer and a large pocket knife. We fought and I won."

"I am so sorry."

Bridget rolled up her bathrobe sleeves and showed more places where Siobhan's knife had cut her. "I will carry scars for life but I have everything that I really care about. I have Andrew, I have Juliet and the baby is fine."

"The baby?"

"He didn't tell you I'm pregnant?"

"I know you lost one last year."

Bridget struggled to keep a straight face on camera as she cringed deep. The lies she told in the past painfully crossed over with the truth in the present. What was she to say? She stood turned as she opened enough of her bathrobe to show the thickened belly. "I am nineteen weeks along. It's a boy."

"Is everything normal?"

Bridget smiled. "Thank God, so far everything is fine. I'm tired and I am all puffy and blotchy and all those other things but you know all about that."

"Oh I remember indeed. I truly am sorry about what that psycho did. You were such a beauty."

"It doesn't bother me. It's God's will and I still have all the things I really care about."

"That doesn't sound like Siobhan."

"I don't think I'm the person you think I am. I've changed."

"She really has," Juliet said. "She's a completely different person. One I love and call Mom."

"Oh how so, Juliet."

Juliet looked at Bridget and smiled. "The woman beside me now is a warm, loving, humble and very spiritual person."

"Oh really," Maudie said with an unsuppressed note of sarcasm and deep suspicion.

"Really, Grandmum. Treat her like you've never met her and I think you'll love her too. Besides, didn't you tell me that forgiving and forgetting is the Christian thing to do?"

Maudie looked away, obviously with a list of pain and resentment accumulated over many years. "Sometimes much easier said than done."

"I never have said you should forgive anyone before. You were always telling me to forgive. It wasn't easy for me to forgive her. There was a lot of anger and baggage and distrust. But if I can then you can."

Bridget fought for the right words. How could she ask for forgiveness without doing more harm? She couldn't harm Andrew by telling everything. She couldn't tell more lies. It was agonizing. "Maudie, Juliet is a beautiful granddaughter and God willing you have a fine grandson on the way. I know there have been years of bad blood and suspicion. I want no more in life than to be a good mother to them and a good wife to your son. I can't and won't defend one word or moment of the past. Please for the sake of your grandchildren let us forgive and end it now and call a truce?"

Maudie was silent, her mind seeming to be locked between the ideals she had professed to Andrew and years of anger. "I hear Eirwyn in the car park. I'll talk to you later." The connection dropped.

Bridget sighed, exhausted. "That was awful. I feel terrible."

"So do I."

Bridget tapped the counter, thinking and then she started keying in an e-mail to Andrew on the iPad in case Maudie called the office. "We're going to have to tell Andrew about it as accurately as we can remember. She's his mother."

"Agreed," Juliet said thoughtfully. "Why didn't you just tell her?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I was afraid Dad would be angry."

"So was I. … It all caught me completely by surprise and … I wimped. I didn't know what to say so it wouldn't hurt Andrew."

"Grandmum hates Siobhan. She always saw right through her. She must have been desperate to call you."

Bridget nodded sadly. "I know. She always sounded like such a nice woman. I wanted to be friends with her but Siobhan's shadow was always in the way. I want to explain and apologize but I … didn't. She is going to be so angry when she finds out I am not me."

"It will be alright."

"I just feel awful. I am a liar. I just robbed Maudie the same way I robbed Andrew and you."

"You didn't rob us."

"But my fear robbed you."

"Isn't it sensible to sometimes be afraid?"

"Sure like jogging in Central Park at night is a pretty sensible fear to have but I created fears that really robbed me and served no purpose and those fears also robbed you."

"How does your fear rob me?"

"My fear robbed you and Andrew, the people I loved, of security because I was never Bridget. Andrew loved me for who he thought I was, not Bridget Kelly the alcoholic addict. I know how devastating it was for Andrew when he found out who I was and what he had loved."

Juliet thought back to when Bridget's secret had finally come out. She thought back to the resentment and the rage. "That night really hurt."

"I know. I'll be trying to make a living amends for what I did to you two for the rest of my life."

"I knew I was sure pissed. But you had a crazed killer after you."

"It wasn't just here with Siobhan and Bodaway Macawi."

Juliet was taken aback. "Oh? Who else have you been?"

Bridget shook her head. "Not like that. I was so closed off. I only let people in when it was on my terms. I had to have some kind of control. And being a woman let's face it I'm not that strong but I knew how to have some control. I hated it but it was how I manipulated men."

"But women have always been doing that."

"Yes, but every time I knew I was using sex for the wrong reason. It wasn't because I was madly in love. It wasn't because I was I wanted to have babies. A little piece of me died each time. I even used that to control people. I would play the poor, victimized little girl. Women ate it up and even men like Agent Machado and Malcolm would feel sorry for me."

"If you hated it so much why did you do it?"

"Because I made everyone else my god and I never went to God. I want to live a good life so I manipulated people to give me what I thought was the good life instead of going to God and asking for the grace to live a good life. I wanted self-esteem. I was so tired of hating myself and wanting to die all the time I played the victim so others would tell me that I was OK and did deserve better instead of asking God to help me see myself the way I really am and to help me become a better me."

Juliet took Bridget's hand and squeezed it. "It will be OK. And I really do love you.

Bridget smiled back, patting Bridget's hand and then hugging her. "I really think Andrew's love is growing and I know you love me, more for who I really am than anybody else in my whole life. I realized just how much I loved you two when I started trying to unravel this snarky, twisted ball named Juliet who reminded me so much of me."


	75. Planning

Planning

"No Maudie," Bridget said to the face on her computer screen. "Things are going fine. I'm at the exact weight Dr. Saperstein says I should be at 24 weeks."

"But you look so thin for six months pregnant."

"She's gained a stone," Andrew said in protest as he walked into the over from the kitchen.

Maudie turned to him. "Oh but when I was pregnant with you I was so big by then. I had two and a half stones of baby belly."

"But you told me you felt horrible and had the worst time delivering me. Her doctor says she's doing great and says keeping her weight down makes it safer to deliver and healthier for her and baby."

"I feel good. My skin itches but I'm doing yoga classes and swimming and still keeping the home."

"Are you sure this doctor knows anything? It seems so skinny and all that seems like too much strain."

"I am carefully keeping fit and Dr. Saperstein is one of the best baby doctors in New York City. My friends used him."

"When I talked to her Wednesday Juliet seemed to be angry with her."

"Oh I was furious," Juliet said, leaning over from her cube.

"What about?"

Bridget shook her head. "Unless Juliet tells you I am not going to. Some things need to be private."

Andrew smiled, not wanting to explain about why Bridget didn't want Juliet and London going on a weekend camp-out with other kids from her school. "Just because you love each other doesn't mean you're not going to fight. You remember how it was with Margaret at that age."

Maudie sighed. "Well do you have the nursery all fixed up?"

"We are working on it," Bridget smiled. "We have almost everything and I have contractors coming in on Monday to sound proof the room."

"Sound proof it?"

"So Andrew can sleep when Junior cries."

"But how will you get up to tend to your baby?"

Bridget shrugged. "A baby monitor."

Maudie nodded, then craned her neck around, looking closely at her screen. "The living room looks different than I remember."

"It should now with baby coming, shouldn't it? This isn't a show home any more. We have a baby coming in three months."

"Is that a Celtic cross on the wall?"

"It's mine," Bridget said.

"It surprises me."

"So sue me," Juliet said. "Crucifixes with the dead body hanging there creep me out. They are SO gross."

"Family harmony is often the art of compromise," Andrew said, ignoring the years Siobhan had railed against the Catholic Church. "They worked the deal out. I'll let you girls talk now." He went back to the kitchen and took a glass of orange juice back to his office.

As he sat at the computer screen behind his closed office door, he knew he should have been trying to come up with a better reason than "Some bunch of Republicans and Iran haters he didn't know the names of will come up with some wild ass way to make the price of gas peak right before the day of the Presidential election to try to get Romney in the White House." He knew that is what really would happen. It was incredibly obvious. He had no idea how they would actually do it, but to precisely time a spike in the price of gasoline they had to make crude spike at about the 15th of September. He knew that no matter who won the election the price of oil would drop back down by about the first of December. It had to. Obama's supporters would do all they could to push the price of gas back down before the election. After that, the push to make the price suddenly drop would be turned off and the price of oil would slowly bounce back, probably about six or eight weeks later.

The problem was explaining to people that there really was a "They" who could and would manipulate the world wide price of a critical commodity like petroleum solely for their own ends.

It was as obvious as the fact that he was being manipulated by Juliet. He was very deliberately being manipulated by Juliet. Despite Bridget and Juliet's fighting, she obviously wanted them to get together as a couple and to get married. Just as Catherine emotionally blackmailed and manipulated them by attempting suicide after they performed the reverse scam, Juliet was emotionally blackmailing and manipulating him with every trick she had, including threatening her trump card of self-destructive substance abuse.

What would he do? He weighed his options carefully as he silently drank his juice and.

He could call her bluff. That might well mean he would have to let Juliet complete her self-destructive course. Would she be as much of a disaster as her mother? Would she die of alcohol poisoning? Would she end up with AIDS and living in an alley? Quite possibly. Would he forgive himself? No. He never would. It would kill him as surely as Siobhan's bullets.

He could try to manage Juliet's insanities himself but he knew he would fail and quite possibly be sucked in. He didn't have the time, not if he wanted to get Martin/Charles Financial back in his control and to expand to other areas. Besides he seemed to have no understanding of Juliet's inner demons and even less desire to do so.

He could continue to have Bridget live there, hoping that everything would work out without the legal risk. He could stretch the time out, but it would just be a few months. He'd have to make a legal declaration one way or the other by the time his boy was born. He also knew that even these days having a child out of wedlock wasn't the image of the successful investment firm owner. His competitors would find out and they would use it against him, especially in the rather lucrative church pension fund market.

He could try to work out a nice legal arrangement now. He could buy Bridget an apartment in the building and have child support and a stipend for taking care of his boy. Juliet could even have a room there. He winced at the cost of that. A three bedroom apartment would cost what, three or four million, plus co-op maintenance. He could swing it but he'd be cutting far too deeply into money he needed to invest with. Besides, he really didn't want her sleeping with anyone else and he didn't want her not sleeping with him. He also knew it would be as bad or worse for his public image as Bridget just living there.

Besides, what was the point? What advantage would he get by going through all that work and expense?

What would he tell his mother and father? You finally have a grandson, but no he won't be carrying the family name. He's a Kelly. He remembered how badly his mother had recoiled in shame when he told her that he was marrying Catherine because she was pregnant. This would be worse, so much worse. How badly would she take it? How would he explain that it was his late wife's sister who had committed suicide?

They couldn't know. No matter what he said, his mother would think that Siobhan committed suicide because he was sleeping with her sister. Even if he could make them understand and believe then that could be worse. How could he explain mass murder, adultery and a set of twins that just disappeared? What a tangled mess it was!

His father had little problem with siring a child out of wedlock, but what would gall him no end was that it was his only son's only son who could carry on the Martin name in the family wouldn't be a Martin but would be a Kelly.

Oh how well Bridget and Juliet had become best friends with his mother. He was not surprised when his mother said she would be flying out after the birth to help. She'd done it for Margaret. As well as the two of them had maneuvered with Mum he knew it would be coming. That meant he had three months on the outside. Everything would have to be settled by then.

He could give in. He could admit defeat and surrender. He could do exactly what Juliet was manipulating him to do and what fate seemed to be conspiring to force him to do.

He thought back to those hours of prayer in the emergency room he gave over Juliet. He said he would do anything. Something inside him kept saying this was part of that anything. He couldn't say it wasn't definitely his imagination and guilt talking. Would he really make a decision like this on his financial future based on such a vague feeling or a contract he made with something that might not even exist? But then he asked himself if he could be sure that there wasn't something upstairs that he had made a legal contract with. No, he could not.

He considered it like a major business decision because he knew it was. He put his glass in the sink, went into his study and closed the door. He pulled up the Excel spreadsheet template for a corporate standard project RADIO matrix. Risks, Assumptions, Dependencies, Issues and Opportunities. He listed his observations on each tab.

Risks:

The biggest one was that Bridget would start using. Random drug testing? Why not? Then it would make Juliet more likely to go with and follow through.

What if she blows a test and it isn't due to a prescribed medication? What if she and Juliet get into a fight and Juliet later took revenge by giving her Alice B. Toklas hash butter brownies with methamphetamine energy drink?

He squinted his eyes shut as he felt a sudden wave of anxiety. Juliet was definitely capable of it. She acted without thinking about what the consequences were. Perhaps that was at the root of all of her problems.

He took a deep breath and continued with his list.

What if she just starts drinking again? It's not illegal but he didn't want another Catherine.

What if Juliet continues down a destructive path despite Bridget doing all that can reasonably be done? Then what?

What if Bridget just decides to divorce him and take half the community property?

Assumptions:

His son will live.

Juliet will live and continue to reside with them.

Dependencies:

Bridget will actually want to get married.

Bridget and Juliet will actually continue to have something resembling a healthy mother/daughter relationship.

Issues:

How to explain the Siobhan Bridget transition to people?

Safe guards in case Bridget goes off the wagon.

Safe guards in case Bridget divorces me or I have to divorce her.

Safe guards against infidelity.

He didn't like the tattoo. Every time he saw it, he was reminded that he was sleeping with a former drug addict. There was something decidedly vulgar about it. He couldn't have it shown in public. He didn't want to ever have to explain it to a client. He could just see it now. "I married a druggie after my second wife stole from my company and ran off, but it was so my daughter from my first marriage didn't become an alcoholic addict like her mother." That would show GREAT judgment on his part.

Opportunities:

Happiness. For the first time in many years, he felt content and happy. Life felt normal.

He had to list as an advantage that the sex was great. That talent of Bridget's was absolutely unchanged. In fact, she seemed to be decidedly better in bed as Bridget than as Siobhan. Her having to wear her glasses during sex was a bit of an inconvenience but her ingenuity, flexibility and sheer tail wagging horniness more than made up for any inconvenience.

With a scarred face and thick glasses, she was no longer eye candy. He wasn't sure whether that was an advantage or a disadvantage. She was a pleasant enough faced woman still and would look better as the scars faded. Her hair darkening because of the pregnancy only added to the illusion of extra years. He wondered whether he would change her back to Siobhan's doppelganger if he could and he really wasn't at all sure.

There was an old joke. When you were young and trying to look like someone who had made it to the top so you could make get, you got a hot young blonde for a secretary. When you had made it you got someone who actually could type 120 words a minute, file, make good coffee and manage the office.

Control of his son's upbringing without having to do all the dirty work. He had changed far too many of Juliet's nappies. He would come home to a potted Catherine and a baby with a full load. He didn't want to go through that again.

She was good on the domestic front. She could cook. She could clean. She got his suits to the dry cleaners. She seemed to be quite happy to do the "little wife" things. This was important. It had never suited Catherine or Siobhan. They had both done at best the absolute minimum and usually far less. Even with a giant belly she did more housekeeping and cooking than the both of them ever did put together.

He did like that she was taking college classes. Siobhan had only busy work to fill her hours like all those stupid and meaningless charity fund raisers that she would drag him to just so she could torture him with opera and boring bleeding heart liberal politicians. Maybe Bridget would even do something useful with a degree. Far more importantly, their having their computers almost side by side forced Juliet to sit down and do her homework.

Maybe she could manage Juliet. Maybe she could keep dragging her to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and whatever else Anonymous was required.

He bolded **Happiness** and highlighted it yellow. He was half way through his expected life on Earth. What was more important than being happy?

He then wrote up some ideas and printed a one page summary. After saved and exited the documents, he went to find Bridget. She was talking to Juliet about species divergence and convergence through the forces of evolution as they went over a draft of Juliet's paper, her glasses now on the table. "Shiv, I'd like to discuss a contract with you." Oops, he'd used the wrong name. Just eight years of habit to get over.

She put her glasses back on. Fortunately she glossed over his faux pas. Either that or she was so used to answering to Siobhan that she did it by habit. "It's your money. Do what you think is going to make you happiest."

There was that word again – happiness. He was used to thinking of his pleasure but not his happiness. He thumbed towards his office, wanting her to follow. "I do think you will want to review this."

She turned to Juliet. "Can you continue with your paper for now?"

"I think so. I'll get you if I am stuck." She wheeled her chair back over to her desk and went to work.

Bridget slowly got up and followed him, that growing belly going before her. Andrew closed the door and sat at his desk. No doubt Juliet was listening but this at least gave an illusion of privacy. Bridget sat slowly and carefully in a chair, her shoulders back and hips so neatly tucked beneath her, eyes upon him.

"I would like to discuss a marriage contract," he said. The words just rolled out.

She nodded. "I would like to marry you. Nothing would make me happier. But you are asking about a contract?"

"A pre-nuptial agreement wherein terms and conditions are set along with penalties for violating those terms and conditions."

"Did you have one for Catherine?"

"No."

"Or Siobhan?"

He shook his head.

"Why me?"

"My first marriage ended in divorce and I filed for divorce on my second marriage. I need it. Perhaps I am older and wiser now."

She sat silently for a long time, seeming to be pondering his words intently. "Alright." She giggled for a moment, then swallowed it down. "What are your terms and conditions?"

"If you fall off the wagon or if you are caught in infidelity and I divorce you, you get nothing."

"Fair … assuming I get everything if you get addicted to drugs or alcohol or I catch you cheating."

He thought for a minute. He'd never cheated on Siobhan although he had come close several times. He couldn't claim he was completely faithful to Catherine. He wanted to think he'd never cheat, but he wasn't sure. "But I worked for the money."

She shrugged. "You care about the money. Being rich doesn't motivate me like it does you or did Siobhan. What if I get half and the other half gets donated to some mutually agreeable charity like Doctors without Borders?"

He had to admit it was fair, yet one mistake could wipe him out utterly. He wasn't confident enough in himself to take that kind of risk. "Let me think about it. If we have a divorce for other causes, I get 90% of the community property assets and you get ten percent."

Her eyes went wide with surprise and then they narrowed with more than a little anger. "Why? Half and half is standard community property."

"As someone who has been divorced twice, the odds are 70% that a third marriage will fail. In a divorce you might get as high as 14% child support. I thought it fair to average it to half the income over a 21 year potential divided by 70%. That comes out to 10%."

"As an active Catholic who hasn't ever been married my odds of getting divorced are 22%. I googled it a few days ago while daydreaming of marrying you. If we're married then my odds of a divorce are your odds so you have a 22% chance. So even if I accepted your formula .. " she picked up a calculator off his desk and punched the numbers in and then did it over. "I think that's a third. I'm willing to make it a term that the remaining what is it a sixth goes to charity if you're really afraid I'd divorce you for your money but I don't think that you should get a discount because you are not willing to fully commit yourself to a marriage."

That was a woman's logic, there was no doubt about it. But he had to admit she was right that he didn't want to be in fear of losing all his money to her. "I'll think about it. Let me have some time. I have a couple of other issues. I want you to get rid of the tattoo."

"Why?"

"Professional embarrassment."

"I'm proud of it. I'm proud of what it means." She paused, biting her lip. She spoke with a growl. "We can negotiate on it. What else?"

"I can't explain to people how I was married to Siobhan and now I am married to someone. I'd want you to change your name to Siobhan."

Bridget's jaw dropped in astonishment. "That's … just sick." Then she paused and spoke in a very measured tone. "I will negotiate on it. Do you have any other conditions?"

"Quarterly drug testing."

She nodded agreeably. "We can negotiate on that. We can all go to the drug lab. It will be a family tradition. Then maybe we can go for ice cream after. Anything else?"

He hadn't planned on getting drug tested but he knew he could pass it. "Breathalyzer tests when asked for."

Again, she nodded. "His and hers home breath test units. And we'll even get one for Juliet. We'll see who blows .08 first. Anything else?"

He shook his head. "Not at the moment."

"I have a couple of conditions of my own."

"Oh?" He had to humor her. "What?"

"You don't want me using. You don't want Juliet using. Is that right?"

"Yes, of course."

"You say you're not an addict or an alcoholic, right?"

"Yes."

"You can just take it or leave it?"

"Yes, I guess so. I like a drink once in a while but …"

"Good. Then you leave it. Entirely. None in the house. None kept in the house. None served to anyone by you or paid for by you anywhere. None consumed outside of the house. The Martins are a totally dry and drug free family."

"But for work …"

"You're far beyond hosting sad cocktail parties where you try to get customers roaring drunk so they will sign onto Martin Charles Financials. People are coming to you. Companies are coming to you. So just come up with an excuse and stick to it. How about this: We both promised Juliet that we would both totally give it up if she would and a Martin always keeps their promises."

"But Martins don't keep their promises."

"Now is a really good time to start."

"But we're the Mad Martins. I steal from you, you steal from me."

She shook her head. "Only if we want to be."

"That's going to be hard."

"No. Changing your name to the name of your dead sister who tried to kill you is hard."

"We'll talk. What else?"

"Juliet becomes my daughter. I legally adopt her as mine. She needs a mother, one right here and right now who will help her learn to live with herself. And with it we re-calculate all your formulas for two children at my chance of divorce because if you and I get divorced you know there is a very high chance Juliet will want to live with me."

Andrew had to admit she was right that Juliet would probably live with her. He also knew that it probably would be the best thing for her. She needed a mother who had never physically, emotionally or sexually abused her and was not criminally insane and locked in a mental hospital for the rest of her natural life. Perhaps Bridget was the best person to be her mother. She was setting the example of someone who was trying to stay clean and to make something of her life. Would her education actually earn a dime? It did not matter. Juliet needed the example of working to get that education.

Unfortunately if he accepted Bridget's chances of getting divorced then a little quick mental math said she would then get 57% of the community assets.


	76. Playing Poker

**Playing Poker**

After they told Juliet about the marriage contract negotiation, Juliet took Bridget into her room and sat her down on her bed. "Don't get me wrong. I really want you two to get married but this whole thing about his negotiating a contract with you doesn't feel right to me. Saying you have to change your name and have your tattoo removed is insulting but what really bothers me is that he's talking like he is just buying another business. Where is the love?"

"I see it in his eyes," Bridget said. "I hear it in his voice when he talks to me. He is afraid to admit it to himself."

"How do you know it isn't just sex?"

"I know that look in men's eyes. This is more."

It had been Bridget's idea for each of them to have one "counselor" for the marriage contract negotiations. Andrew agreed, expecting that they should hire two different family practice lawyers, but Bridget named Juliet as her counselor.

He had to smile at the move. It showed just how street smart she was. She knew he would have to pull all his punches. He considered Solomon and even Tim, but he named Jeff Sheridan.

The four of them sat at the dining room table and waited for the take out Chinese to be delivered.

Jeff pulled out two packs of 3 by 5 cards. "This is part of a negotiation technique I've used before. Sometimes it works very well." He gave Juliet and Bridget one pack and kept the other with him and Andrew. "The deal is for a marriage, until death do you part. Is that correct?"

Andrew and Bridget both nodded, and Juliet squeezed both their hands.

"Each side, write down the conditions you want to add to a basic marriage deal, only one condition per card. One per card, no more."

Juliet got pens. Andrew and Bridget wrote down what they wanted. She was quickly through. "Would anybody like anything from the kitchen?"

"Some tea, please," Andrew said.

She started a fresh pot of tea for Andrew. When she returned, he was still writing.

When Andrew was finally through, Jeff said "Now put forward the card you want the most."

Bridget quickly put one forward. Andrew sat, thinking. He showed his cards to Jeff. "Hey, it's your marriage," he said to Andrew. "You are the one who has to decide what is most important to you."

He put one card face down and then went through the remaining five. It was an agonizing choice. He was afraid of being wiped out financially or having another Catherine but he couldn't stomach the shame of Siobhan. He looked at Juliet, knowing what she would say to his fears of Bridget taking all his money. He even picked up his other card for a minute and looked at it before deciding. Finally he put forward a card, face down just as the tea kettle whistled. Bridget got up to make the tea but Juliet beat her to it.

"What is the condition that is most important to each of you for this contract," Jeff said.

"I want Juliet as my daughter."

Andrew sighed. "I can't get the condition I really want. I want Siobhan never to have been. I want to have married you instead of her. But I can't explain that insanity to my family. So I am asking for you to take her name and pretend that you've always been here."

Juliet brought back the tea pot on a tray with cups. "Daddy, that's really sweet, in kind of a sick Martin way."

Bridget looked down sadly. "You don't know who I was then and I'm glad you've never met that person. If you did, you wouldn't ever talk to me again."

"You know each other now," Juliet said. "That's the important thing."

"Our platoon leader in Desert Storm said that when you stand with one foot in the past and one foot in the future you piss on the present."

Bridget took another blank card from her pack. "I am going to write that one down."

Andrew looked at Juliet. "You're one of the items being negotiated over. What do you think?"

"I call her Mom. I do want her to be my Mom."

"Is it a deal," Jeff asked.

"Andrew, I think it will eventually blow up in your face," Bridget said. "Lying is always risky, and I think the person you're telling the biggest lie to is yourself."

"But you spent seven months pretending to be Siobhan and you did a much better job of it than she ever did."

"But I don't want to be her. I want to be who I am, where I am, with the people I am with."

"But I can barely explain everything that has happened even to myself. I can't explain it to my mother."

Jeff had an idea. "Bridget, what's your middle name?"

"I don't have one."

"What?"

"Clan Kelly is from Árainn na Naomh in Cuan na Gaillimhe. It's still very much in the Ghaeltacht to this day. You just don't do middle names there, especially if your name is after a saint and my mother's mother was named after Saint Brigit of Kildare."

Andrew heard a distinct Irish brogue for a moment. He smiled at the sound of it, not knowing just how deep her Irish roots went and how much Siobhan had cut hers off. "Siobhan didn't have a middle name either."

"Siobhan means Joan in Gaelic. She was named after my father's mother and Saint Joan of Arc." Bridget smiled. "They came over right after the war from tir dhuchais with my father by the hand. She was such a kind, dear soul."

"Take your grandmother's name as your middle name. That way you're keeping her alive in you and if Andrew's mother asks about it you can say Siobhan is your middle name but you're using your first name now."

Bridget held Juliet's hand. "To make Juliet mine I would do it."

Jeff shook his head. "A lie like that isn't a good idea, especially to your mother. They always find out."

"I'll chance it," Andrew said. "And I want one other thing to make it a deal." Andrew said, putting forward another card. "I hate the tattoo. I want it off."

"But it's a part of me and my recovery."

"Greer told me about your ink," Jeff said. "Let me see it."

Bridget raised the sleeve of her T shirt. Jeff held it and examined it closely. "Where did you get this?"

Bridget squinted. "It was on the Lower East Side Bowery area just below Houston Street. There was a pizza place next door and I remember there was punk rock music stuff all around for a band called something like 'We Agnostics.'"

"Agnostic Front," Jeff said. "NYC Hardcore on Stanton." He shook his head. "This tattoo isn't coming off."

"They have lasers," Andrew said. "They can do it."

"First, she's pregnant. Any good doctor won't do it now." Jeff said as he pulled the back of his shirt up and showed a bulldog in a Captain America outfit with boxing gloves on his back. "Second, I know ink. Her tat goes down deep. You might get the black date off but look at that beautiful shading in her design. It almost looks alive. There are so many subtle shades of yellow, green, blue, grey and black in there the way that's worked. They layered those colors to build it up so rich. Each color takes a different laser and green is the hardest to remove. You try to take remove it, she'll wear that design as a big ugly scar for life."

"I want a doctor's opinion."

"Sure thing, but any good one will say just what I did." Jeff looked at it again. "You can go with a cover-up tattoo but you'd need something a whole lot bigger so it didn't just look like a bad cover-up."

Andrew exhaled with a sigh and tapped the card on the table. "But how do I explain that to business clients who meet you."

"You don't," Bridget said. "They won't see it."

"How?"

She shrugged, smiling awkwardly. "Long sleeve shirts."

Andrew wanted other men to see Siobhan. He wanted them to be jealous of her drop dead gorgeous looks. He looked at Bridget, thinking of their relationship. He looked at the tattoo and the glasses and the scars and the darkening hair and the pregnancy mask. He would be able to cover up all of those things to others but they would still be there for him, always. "You would go in long sleeve shirts for the rest of your life?"

"To have both you and my sobriety, gladly."

Andrew tapped his card on the table. "Any time you're out of the apartment?"

She nodded. "Any time."

"Is that a deal," Jeff asked again.

Andrew nodded. "Yes."

Jeff put the three cards in a pile. "I still think lying to your mother is a lousy idea but we'll go with it. This can't be touched. Now we go on to what is the next most important thing."

Bridget and Andrew each put in one card. Jeff picked them up and read them and then tossed them down. "To me this looks like a push. Naming him Owain Glyn in exchange for raising him Catholic. Is it a deal?"

Both nodded. Bridget put her remaining card down. Andrew looked at his remaining cards and tossed them in. "They're all part of the same thing."

Jeff picked up the cards, read them and tossed them down. "Oh boy. Here is where the problems will be."

Juliet picked them up and read them, her eyes becoming narrow from the insult. "The word is concubine. Don't you love her?"

"I'm not turning her into a concubine."

"Oh yes you are. You're making her a second or subsequent wife of inferior status and inheritance to the first. Look it up in the dictionary."

Jeff turned to Juliet and said "That's a really good argument. It's well stated, it's researched and it's emotionally clear. Have you considered becoming a courtroom lawyer?"

Juliet smiled. "Thank you. I'm going to think about that."

Andrew wasn't smiling. He sat, silently stewing. Even his own counselor had turned on him. He felt completely lost, with no idea how to respond.

Jeff tapped the cards. "The other decisions were based in the future. How your baby will be educated for example. These cards are all based in the past. They show your fears. They are also the ones you are most guilty about and the most ashamed of. Bridget, you are ashamed of your using in the past and afraid of your years of substance abuse so you want to control your world and future by removing alcohol from your home environment. Am I correct?"

Bridget nodded. "Of course."

"Andrew, you have been burned badly in two previous marriages and are afraid of being burned in a third. Am I right?"

"Hell yes."

"And you are ashamed at the depth of the failure of those two bad marriages, aren't you?"

Andrew nodded, his head held low.

"Are you guilty about those marriages?"

"Who wouldn't be? Look at how I damaged my family and my daughter."

Bridget, are you guilty about your past?"

Bridget stopped and thought. "No, I am not. I have done what I can to make a living amends for my past. When I first impersonated Siobhan, I had planned on grabbing what cash I could and going on the run with it." She squeezed Andrew and Juliet's hands across the table. "I stayed even though I knew people were trying to kill Siobhan because I really felt God had put you in my life so I could serve you by cleaning up the mess Siobhan made of you. Then God blessed me with love."

Andrew smiled, looking mistily in her eyes for a moment. "I am guilty, I admit it. But I am also afraid. I don't want to be wiped out if I have another divorce."

"How much are you worth right now," Jeff asked.

He thought for a moment, adding up assets and translating currencies. "About 30 million US dollars."

"Bridget, how much are you worth?"

Bridget smiled and laughed, tossing her hands up. "Nothing."

"Then you would enter the marriage with that as property. New York is not a community property state. It is an equitable distribution state. The marital assets and debts of the parties will be divided in an equitable fashion. This does not mean equal. What it does mean is that, based on the particular facts of the case, the assets and debts will be divided in a manner that fairly represents both of your contributions to the marriage. Andrew, you will retain as a separate property the assets you bring into the marriage. Only the appreciation of your separate property assets will be subject to equitable distribution based on what contributions were made. If you married and instantly divorced like the Hollywood stars in People magazine then by the law of the State of New York then you would retain almost everything."

"But I got taken to the cleaners by Catherine."

"How much money did you have when you entered the marriage?"

"I was a grad student at Columbia. Not much."

"So your money was made after the marriage. Where did she file for divorce?"

"Florida."

"The laws are different in other states. I don't know Florida."

"What if I am divorced in another state?"

"It all depends on the laws in that state at the time."

"So I can still get wiped out."

Jeff nodded. "You can also get killed by a mugger but that doesn't stop you from going out of the apartment, does it?"

Juliet lifted a finger in the air, thinking. "I have an idea. Sign an agreement that no matter when or where you might divorce everything would be settled under New York state law as of the date of the marriage. That includes equitable distribution of property."

"I accept that, for a normal divorce. But I don't want you using on me like Catherine or cheating on me like Siobhan."

"I don't want to use ever and I don't want to have sex with anyone besides you ever. I also don't want you cheating or using on me. I am willing to do any agreement that imposes equal sanctions on either one of us if we break the promise and go out or cheat."

Andrew chewed his lower lip, beginning to wonder whether the whole marriage discussion was a bad idea. He certainly wasn't getting his way.

Jeff looked at Andrew and saw the tension. "Alright, let's try something a little different. I need the both of you to do some writing and you must not be able to see what the other has written until it's complete. Take it on faith."

Bridget stood up, taking her cards and a pen. "I'll go to the kitchen counter." Juliet followed her.

"Great," Jeff said, taking notes. "Now, list this as scenario 1. Without commenting out loud, write down what percentage of the entire estate you think is fair for Andrew to get if Andrew becomes a drug addict."

"What," Andrew said, astonished and more than a little offended.

"You heard me," Jeff said slowly. "Without commenting out loud, write down the percentage of the estate do you think it is fair for you to get if you become a drug addict."

"Done," Bridget said from the kitchen.

Andrew did his best to imagine himself lining up at the bagel shops on Staten Island with all the other pill addicts in the city to get $20 a pill Oxycodone. It wasn't easy. Eventually he wrote out his answer. "Alright."

"Now scenario number two. Without commenting out loud, write down the percentage of the estate you think it is fair for Andrew to get if Andrew is caught with undeniable and legally admissible evidence committing adultery. Then answer the same questions for Bridget."

For several minutes both sat in silent contemplation, only interrupted by their dinner arriving and Juliet setting the table. Finally they both signaled their completion and Jeff dished himself up the almond chicken. "Think about your answers for a moment," he said and then nimbly took a mouth full using chop sticks. "Can each of you really live with what you said?"

"I'm sure," Bridget said, taking a spoon full of beef lo mein.

Andrew shrugged and nodded as he looked at the choices.

Jeff took the cards and silently read them. "Very interesting. Andrew, you said a quarter. Guess how much Bridget said."

"I don't know, less I guess. A tenth maybe?"

Jeff shook his head. "Three quarters."

Andrew was stunned. "That's what I should get," he said, his eyes wide with amazement.

Jeff handed the card back to Bridget. "Read it."

Bridget finished her mouth full and focused her glasses. "If you became an addict then you should still be treated with all our love as a sick person. Money to help you get clean should be put away in a trust. That money would be used by the trust for treatment and rehab because any money controlled by an addict out there ends up in drugs. Three quarters of the money in the trust seems reasonable."

He watched them devouring the greasy, salt laden Chinese as if it were a feast and felt like he was an alien who was missing something fundamental but had no idea what it was. Why was he outsider in his own family? He thought about Bridget's answer. Was it to show him up? That would be a strange negotiating position. Was it simply a self-serving remark so he would not dump her if she did go back to drugs and drinking? Perhaps. But he had to admit that she did not seem tempted to return to that life. She was hardly pole dancing material any more. Would her desire to be a good mother keep her clean or was life as an alcoholic and an addict punishment enough?

"While we're eating maybe you want to revise your cards," Jeff said, handing them back to him.

Andrew looked at his answers. "An interesting negotiating strategy you have. What law school course did they teach it in?"

"Didn't. Learned it from a marriage counsellor."

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "A marriage counselor? That's a surprise. I thought you two had a solid relationship."

Jeff shook his head as he bit into his almond chicken. "We do, but it's not easy. We've succeeded because we work hard at it and sometimes that means dumping your pride and going for help."


	77. A Stranger in Pre-Cana

**A Stranger in Pre-Cana**

She was in the living room of their apartment in Hawaii. They were both sitting on the couch together. They had moved there together to get away from everything and everyone. A rather cute boy with sun bleached blond hair, tanned skin and surfer muscles that showed through his Aloha shirt was sitting in a chair. "Why do you two make a game of trying to fool people about who you are," he asked.

"We don't," Bridget said, looking at Siobhan, seeing that they had both dyed their hair black. "Can you really not tell us apart?"

"No. You both dress the same, look the same and talk the same."

"Oh," Siobhan said, smiling. "You really think so?"

"The secret is our hair," Bridget said, turning to show the back of her head. Siobhan wears hers up or pulled back straight and it's longer. Mine is shorter and looser."

With that, she woke up from a thoroughly delicious and much needed afternoon nap. She looked at the clock. It was almost 5:00, getting close to time to go.

As she cleared the fuzz out of her brain, she reflected on the dream. She should have been frightened or angry or something but the thought of things being happy with Siobhan in some alternate universe was oddly comforting. She wished things hadn't ended so horribly with Siobhan. Her heart still ached for her sister but she had come to accept that it always would. She gave a sad smile and made sure she was presentable, in a good denim jumper and T-shirt.

She felt the baby, feeling like there was a basketball with a big, glowing neon sign that shone "Sinner" under her jumper. She'd never felt so self-conscious about her bump before, not even at mass or confession. Today would be hard.

She found Juliet in the kitchen, popping a frozen pizza in the toaster oven. "Dinner," she said to Bridget. "I'm all set." She looked at Bridget. "You looked stressed. There's nothing to be nervous about."

"That's easy for you to say. You're not Catholic."

"I'm serious. What are you so nervous about?"

Bridget shrugged. "I remember hearing about these pre-wedding classes years ago and how long and involved and difficult they are. I'm just nervous and I'm afraid Andrew will get angry and run out."

"He promised he would do it," Juliet said in her most reassuring tone. "He's been doing a lot better at keeping his promises."

"I know," she said, then changed the subject. "What will you do?"

"Oh, just go pour down a jug of Jack Daniels," Juliet said, but was met with an icy, stiff stare. She smiled, clapping her hands. "Just kidding."

"I know. But don't even joke about your sobriety. It's too precious."

Juliet wiped the smile off her face. "I'm sorry. I won't go or have anyone in, I promise. I will stay here by myself and catch up on Tivo and Facebook."

Bridget grabbed a quick snack and went downstairs to get a cab to The Church of Our Saviour at Park Avenue and 38th Street. She would be early, she knew.

Every Catholic knew what Pre-Cana was. It was the standard course couples were expected to go through before they could be married in a Catholic church. Bridget even knew the name had to do with Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding. But she didn't know what to expect from there.

She arrived early and went to sit and pray first. She wanted it all to work out so much. It was a beautiful, huge church, lovely for a wedding. She pictured it decorated with flowers and with the choir in the stand singing the Celtic Alleluia.

Reality settled in as she followed the directions into a large classroom and the other couples and the facilitators arrived. This was the class for marriages for when one or more partners already had children but she was the only one who was clearly pregnant. By the time the class was supposed to start there were at least thirty couples seated. She felt so awkward and embarrassed and alone as she tried to fake a smile. The glowing basketball under her jumper had expanded to being a beach ball and the sign was now flashing. She wanted to walk elegantly down the aisle, not waddle. Too late for that, she thought as she filled out the information card.

She sent Andrew a text asking where he was. Eventually her phone vibrated back. "I'll be there soon." How soon was soon, she wondered.

The name tags on the older married couple who were leading the Pre-Cana class for marriages with children read Dan and Anita. They seemed very confident and well prepared. The room was set up with tables and chairs spaced for couples to sit together. Bridget finally sat down with an empty chair beside her at the front of the class so she could have a chance at reading the screen and filled out the registration forms for both her and for Andrew.

Dan collected the forms as a short, fat and quite bald priest in a simple black cassock quietly walked up to her. "Is your fiancé coming? This really needs to be done as a couple."

"Andrew said he'd be here. He just texted me."

The priest smiled and then withdrew to the back of the room as Dan went to the front of the class and Anita randomly distributed name tags throughout the room. "Alright. Everyone go find your own name tag."

She silently said a prayer for Andrew to come and then got up and awkwardly began asking everyone for their name tags. It must have been an ice breaker of some sort. She would have felt much less frozen out if Andrew had been there.

Dan started a PowerPoint presentation on a notebook computer and projector as Anita got up front. The first slide read

Pre-Cana Marrying With Stepchildren

"Greetings," she said. "Welcome to the class. I am Anita and my husband is Dan. We were married right here in Church of Our Saviour and have been teaching this class for over ten years. I am a school teacher and Dan has a Master's degree in Social Work and is a licensed counselor. We have five children and together we founded the For your Marriage Foundation. We have drawn on the experience of thousands of students and the class of many diocese as we developed and revised these workbooks through the years. Father Roncalli will be here to handle administrative matters and special questions.

Finally the classroom door opened and Andrew quietly walked in and sat by Bridget, putting his briefcase beside him. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Tim wouldn't shut up and then the cab driver was an idiot."

Anita gave Andrew a stern look before continuing on. "We will have six classes starting at 6:30 and running until 8:00 PM. We audio record all classes so in case you have to miss one you can catch up."

She changed the slide. Bridget read it quickly.

**Required Topics**

1. Ceremony Planning

2. Spirituality of Marriage

3. Family of Origin

4. Communication

5. Conflict Management

6. Marriage as a Sacrament

7. Sexuality and Intimacy

8. Natural Family Planning

9. Children

10. Theology of the Body

11. Finances

12. Couple Prayer

"These are the topics we always cover for any class." She changed slides again. "We have additional topics that we usually need to cover in a class like this."

1. Unique Challenges of Military Couples

2. Cohabitation

3. Forming a Stepfamily

4. Children of Divorce

Anita changed the slide again. The title read **Ceremony Planning - Paperwork**. Father Roncalli slowly stepped up to the front. "The path through the necessary forms for marriage sometimes seem complicated and daunting. I will outline it today." He changed the slide.

"What papers are needed to get married? In addition to the civil license each party must furnish the pastor or delegated priest with a baptismal certificate and a statement from his or her pastor that there is no impediment to the marriage."

Before Andrew raised his hand a black woman behind them did and said "I am not a Catholic so I don't have any Catholic baptism certificate."

"Think of the baptismal record as like your unique identifier in the system, like a social security number. Even if you are unbaptized in any church we need to be able to record the marriage and to make sure your marriage isn't prohibited."

"What do you mean prohibited? I'm old enough to marry."

Bridget looked at the stress on the woman's face and then saw the same look on Andrew's. It wasn't good.

Father Roncalli sighed. "The official term is nullifying impediments. There are several. By far the most common is divorce." He looked around the group with a distinct look of apprehension. "You do understand that a divorce prevents you from remarrying."

Andrew raised his hand. "But I am not Catholic and the ex was Jewish."

"It doesn't matter."

Andrew undid his tie and pulled his shirt back, showing his wound scar. "She tried to murder us. I took a bullet. She tried to kill us all. She's doing three consecutive life sentences in a hospital for the criminally insane, two of them for homicide."

"It doesn't matter."

"She's an insane alcoholic and pill head. I tried to stay married for our daughter but I couldn't take it."

"That would only matter if you can prove that she was an alcoholic or an addict at the time of the marriage and could not have been competent to enter into the marriage in the first place."

"Oh she was crazy. I have all of that fully and legally documented. I tried to get custody of Juliet and had a private investigator get her complete history of rehabs, drug busts, DUI's and mental breakdowns. I can prove it both before and after the marriage and even continuing after the divorce. In fact, the only way I could get her to be clean while she was pregnant with Juliet was to put her in rehab for months."

Bridget was surprised, not by Catherine having the long record but that Juliet didn't know he had gone to the trouble to try to get her taken away.

"That sounds promising to petition for an annulment," Father Roncalli said. "But until it's granted you can't get your union blessed."

"Great. How long will it take?" He left unspoken that they had a bit of a deadline.

"A tribunal usually rules within eighteen months."

Andrew's jaw dropped. "Eighteen months. How much is the expedite fee for express handling?"

Father Roncalli shook his head. "I am sorry but there isn't any such thing. God can't be bought."

"I'm not trying to buy anything that shouldn't be given away for free. It's not moral or right to condemn us when I am trying to make an honest woman of her and she's trying to put her life together and live a good Catholic life but you're stopping us with your Dark Ages rules and your Inquisitions into our personal lives."

"Andrew, please," Bridget said. "Have respect."

Andrew stood up and then turned to Bridget. "I tried. I would marry you in a Catholic church. I would put in the marriage contract to let you raise Owain Catholic and to support you in doing all your Catholic things. I would have given them a million dollars in cash without blinking an eye to make you happy. But they don't want me here."

Softly, uncontrollably, Bridget began to cry. Not loud wailing but quiet tears ran down her face.

Father Roncalli raised his hands, pleading. "It may be difficult to accept now but the Lord does love and want you and your child. I wish I could wave a magic wand and bring your case directly to trial. As justifiable as your case sounds and as desperately as we could use the money things like that can never be bought. It isn't about money. Nobody is ever turned away for not being able to pay but no case is ever rushed."

"But what do we do," Bridget asked as she tried to compose herself.

"My child, there are no easy answers in your case. I would apply for his annulment immediately. It may take less time. If you do get married, once you receive a decree of annulment you may have your marriage convalidated. The common term is "blessed" but _c__onvalidation is much more than a mere blessing._ It is the exchange of vows according to the Church that would elevate your marriage to a sacrament and would bring you the endless amounts of special and powerful graces that every married couple should have. But please understand that until number one dies or you get that decree you will be lapsed and not be able to receive Communion."

With that, Bridget broke down totally into limp, heaving sobs. Andrew took her hand and grabbed his suit jacket and briefcase as he led her outside. "Right now City Hall looks better and better."

Bridget cried uncontrollably in the cab on the way home. Andrew tried to comfort her but nothing helped.

Juliet double checked the TV listings. Everything was Summer Olympics or even worse, the Presidential elections. There was a rerun of Hart of Dixie coming on but she was more in the mood for playing Second Life. At least that way she could be virtually out and around other people.

She sat in front of her computer with two slices of pepperoni pizza and a diet Pepsi. The box said that the pepperoni had pork in it but the Pepsi was kosher. That had to balance out. She was surprised to hear the elevator open. "Hello," she called, grabbing her cell phone just in case.

"It's us," Andrew said.

"You're home way early," she said, putting down the pizza and walking towards them until she saw Bridget's red, tear streaked face. "What happened?"

"They won't marry us," Andrew said, getting her to a couch. "They don't like my divorce from Catherine?"

"That's crazy. You're divorced."

Andrew shook his head. "I don't understand it. It's like once married, always married."

"But things go wrong. People change. I mean did you tell them about how she tried to kill Bridget and you got shot and everything?"

"I showed them the scar. I offered the mountain of evidence a detective gathered documenting her insanity and her addiction from when I tried to get custody of you during the divorce. The priest said they could annul the marriage but it would take a year and a half."

"Can't they hurry?"

"I offered a million dollars but the fool turned us away."

Juliet shrugged. "If you don't like what they say, go to Rabbi Potek. He's told me he wants to help."

Andrew thought for a moment and nodded agreeably. "That's not a bad idea. Somehow there's poetry to it."

"But I don't want to be married by a Rabbi. I want to be married by Bishop Fitzgerald in Church of the Most Holy Redeemer."

"Hey, you're the one who told me to follow the God of your understanding. You're the one who told me God is love. If your God isn't understanding you and doesn't love you then let's make out a shopping list of what you need."

Bridget sighed. It was exactly what she had told Juliet but she didn't want to change her Higher Power to get married. It was ironic. She would have an easier time in Church as an unmarried sinner than getting a priest to marry them.


	78. Keep Calm and Carry On

**Keep Calm and Carry On**

He went into the kitchen. There were ants all over place. The seemed to be attracted to a tray with food on it but they were going everywhere. He swatted at the ants on his arm but that didn't stop them. If anything it seemed to make it worse. He took careful aim and crushed individual ants to kill them but they didn't die. They get bigger and more mutated each time. He flailed at them again and again, trying to kill them and fling them off, but they would reassemble into bigger ants with bigger with bigger mouths. They were biting into his flesh and devouring him alive. He began stabbing at them with a fork but they kept on growing. He was fighting for his life as they attacked his arms and his legs and his hands and his eyes. He struggled to get away as they took bigger and bigger chunks out of his flesh but he could feel himself being eaten alive by a swarm of rat sized ants.

He woke with a shudder and looked at the clock. It was 3:30 AM. He lay in bed, thinking and trying to go back to sleep.

As Bridget snored beside him, Andrew stared at the dark ceiling, wide awake, feeling completely and utterly helpless. He didn't want to move and wake her up. She had taken it so hard. She cried for hours and nothing either of them said could console her.

He knew part of it was just her pregnancy hormones but what that priest said was a low blow. Why did they have such crazy rules and how was he going to get around them?

He would have had the cash delivered in the morning to make her happy. Couldn't they understand that his offer was entirely serious? He thought of how happy he had been when he found $700,000 in Siobhan's safe deposit box. Then came the question of what he going to do with it. He could not just deposit it all in his bank account. The Federal government would be alerted about any cash transfer over a few thousand dollars so he had been slowly using it for odd necessities like restaurant bills while letting the rest just take up space in his home office safe.

It would have been justice to have the money that Siobhan stole in her insane rampage for revenge be used to make the sister she hated happy.

Would the priest try to contact him tomorrow? Had he thought that it was a joke or a put-up? That must be it. He still couldn't believe that they wouldn't grab a million dollars in cash. He'd read in the paper how Catholic churches desperately needed money. All of their scandals and the hard economic times had reduced their funding. If he went over with say half a million dollars in his briefcase would it sufficiently get their attention to act upon his pounds of detailed documentation?

Perhaps he could shop for his indulgences elsewhere. There must be a poorer community that would appreciate his gift more. He thought of the earthquake that struck Haiti a couple of years earlier. That was an Act of God that was truly unfair. One of the poorest countries on Earth and a quarter of a million good Haitian Catholics killed and who knew how many homes destroyed. How many homes would a million dollars rebuild? A few hundred?

Nothing made sense to him. The Catholic views on divorce seemed to be utterly cruel. No wonder they had such a low divorce rate – they tortured their members who did get divorced.

He had been raised Anglican but had no respect for the Anglican Church either. Growing up he had gone only to please his mother. They had always seemed to be as much a bunch of greedy bastards as any other religion. He really had been willing to give the Catholics a fair try before this, just to make Bridget happy, just to have a united family. Well, at least two out of three following one religion.

Was there a God, he wondered. He wasn't sure. He knew he had mostly believed it when he was praying over Juliet's seemingly lifeless body in Bellevue's emergency room. He wasn't at all sure there wasn't a God but had no idea where to find him. He never seemed to be in churches. He thought back to an old joke the owner of a hotel and catering chain had told him over dinner a few years earlier.

One Sunday morning an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally worn out Bible.

The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed with expensive clothes and accessories.

As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled at his appearance and did not attempt to hide it. The preacher gave a long sermon about Hellfire and brimstone and a stern lecture on how much money the church needed to do God's work. As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor.

"Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask Him what He thinks would be appropriate attire for worship."

The old cowboy assured the preacher he would. The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored.

The preacher approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church concerning the appropriate attire for worship."

"I did," replied the old cowboy."

"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?" asked the preacher.

"Well sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He says He's never been in this church..."

If there was a God, what church was he in? Andrew didn't have a clue.

Was God to be found among God's chosen people? No, he didn't think so. He liked Rabbi Potek, he really did. He wholeheartedly supported Juliet's evolving Jewish identity. If it took hold it would help her have identity, stability and a better opinion of herself. But was God among the Jews? People wondered how God could be with the Jews when the Jews had been persecuted so much for so many centuries but that wasn't what bothered Andrew. Only the persecutors had the choice of whether or not to club Jewish families and dump them down wells in 12th century Norwich or to gas Jewish families and toss them into ovens in Auschwitz.

When he was a teen-ager still living at home he had secretly looked for God. There was a time when he wondered if the reason was no true church he could find was that there was none. Was the whole Christianity thing a crock? He wasn't sure but after looking at Judaism he decided that was not the way. The Orthodox Jew's Talmud always seemed to him like the senseless babblings of old men and their practices were a commitment to traditions that made no sense. The Reformed seemed to have no commitment to anything and barely a belief in God.

During his search for truth in Wales, he had come up with his own three criteria for a religion where God was. Lead a good life. Give truth freely and without making anyone pay for it. Don't deny anyone help for lack of money. To that, he had added one from the Bible: Love one another. When he searched he had found something he liked in several religions, oddly the most being Russian Orthodox. He loved their art and their music. But he never found a group that lived all of his four principles.

He looked at the clock again. It read 4:15.

What would he do? He remembered a poster his father had. It was printed up during World War II to be used in case the Germans invaded. It read "Keep Calm and Carry On." That's all he could do, keep calm and carry on working to come up with a solution.

Before dawn Andrew finally dozed off.


	79. Vital Records

As Andrew rode in the cab to work, he quietly seethed inside. It seemed all so stupid and yet he knew she wasn't going to stop her depression and moping around the house.

He had tried to be the honest man. He offered fair and reasonable terms to marry her. He even agreed to raise his one and only son as Catholic. If that wasn't an incredible concession he didn't know what was.

He needed to get it out of his head to be able to work. The anger just kept building up in him. Couldn't they see how utterly illogical and impractical they were behaving?

He pulled out his iPad and started composing an e-mail to her.

Bridget,

I remember you talking about how a part of recovery is living life on life's terms. You really need to do that right now. Marriage wise, we're both damaged goods. There is no point in detailing our mistakes of the past. We need to deal with the reality of our situation and work now to make the best possible future.

I want to marry you. I think you want to marry me. Right now, that marriage will require a sacrifice from you but you have a choice on how you make the sacrifice. As I see it you have three alternatives.

You can suffer the consequences of being a Catholic who marries a divorced man. I win in this scenario but you will be very sure that you lose. As traumatic as being "lapsed" may be to you, all I can do is say it won't be forever. I have already started the annulment process but unfortunately this ridiculous procedure will take time. I have been in contact with Catherine's doctors and they say Catherine has end stage liver disease from too many decades of abuse and they give her about six months to live. I hadn't brought it up because I didn't want to upset Juliet but you can verify it for yourself.

You can ditch the Catholic ideas and we can get married. We can go to another religion. I see this option as a very attractive win-win scenario. May I suggest us becoming Russian Orthodox? They have a very nice service, beautiful churches, a better claim to divine authority and they have a much more humane attitude towards divorce. I also rather liked the food.

You can be so depressed and disgusted that you refuse to marry. We would all lose, especially little Owain. If there is a God surely he would say that it is better for us to be married. It is better for our son. If premarital sex is a sin then we would stop doing that too. (Not the sex, just the pre-marital part of it.)

We need to talk. Not you, me and Juliet but you and me. Can you make suitable arrangements for her? I can take you anyplace you want or I can suggest a restaurant that is good for conversation or I'll bring dinner in. Wherever you'll be most relaxed and comfortable.

Andrew

Unfortunately, Bridget didn't have time to check her e-mail that morning. "Please, Juliet," Bridget said, grabbing her purse and her phone and making sure she had everything. "I'm going to be late for Dr. Saperstein and then I need to go to my pre-natal yoga."

Juliet held her hands up to the universe, shaking them in frustration. "Oh great, another hour of staring at baby magazines and then two hours of fat women contemplating their navels."

"But I need it. Please. I don't have the strength to fight you now."

"I love you and I love my brother to be but I feel like I am drowning in your pregnancy. I need out for just a little while so I can get a little taste of what it is to feel sane and normal."

"How do I know it isn't a trick?"

Juliet shook her head. "I don't even want to drink or use."

"What if the obsession to drink hits you when you're out?"

"I'll call you and get a cab immediately and come right home. I am 100% staying away from it."

"What will Andrew say?"

Juliet sighed. "You can't keep me taped up in bubble wrap for the rest of my life. Sometime I have to be out alone in the real world. I have my 90 day chip. I haven't been clean and sober this long in ... I think it's since before the divorce." She nodded, thinking and reflecting. "At least since I was seven."

"He is still very worried."

"I promise I will not touch a drop. And you can Breathalyzer test me when I get back."

"What about drugs?"

"I'll pee in a cup. There's going to be nothing in me that the doctor hasn't prescribed."

"What are you going to do?"

"I want to go to a bookstore, a big book store and find some deliciously trashy book and I have been craving a genuine Starbucks Venti Iced Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino Blended Crème sipped in luxurious slowness as I read and watch the people."

"We could go after to a book store and to Starbucks."

"But that's not the point. I just need some ME time, away from everything. I've been cooped up and under guard for more than three months.

Bridget thought for a moment. Juliet was right about not being able to live in a bubble forever. "If you blow this, you're going to really disappoint your father."

"On my honor, cross my heart and hope to die I am going to come back completely clean."

"Expect to be tested."

Juliet smiled. "I am counting on it. I promise, nothing but USDA prime grade cleanest wee wee."

Juliet did not go out to use. That was not her intention at all. As much as she wanted to hit Starbucks, there was something she was craving even more. She had her mission carefully planned for days. She took the number six from Hunter College all the way down to City Hall. From there she went to the Department of Vital Records at 125 Worth Street. It was one of those big, crowded government offices with windows of disinterested government workers, long lines and people standing at tables and writing. She joined one table, found the right form and began to fill it out.

DEATH CERTIFICATE APPLICATION

(PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY)

She hated printing, and printing clearly just wasn't something she knew how to do.

LAST NAME AT TIME OF DEATH: "Martin" FIRST NAME: "Siobhan"

DATE OF DEATH : 04/27/2012

That was one day she would never forget, even though she was on the other side of the planet.

PLACE OF DEATH: "Outside Steinberg's Deli, Avenue B and East 4th"

She had kept the text where Bridget told her where she was now.

BOROUGH: "Manhattan"

AGE: "32"

HOW MANY COPIES DO YOU NEED?

One was all she would need.

DO YOU NEED A LETTER OF EXEMPLIFICATION? YES NO

She circled yes. She didn't know what it meant but it did sound quite good.

SPOUSE OR DOMESTIC PARTNER'S NAME: "Andrew Martin"

LAST KNOWN ADDRESS

So where the Hell had she been living for almost a whole year? Henry Butler's? Not all the time. No, she put down the address that would look the best. "626 Park Avenue Suite 1400 New York, New York, 10023"

OCCUPATION OF DECEASED

Juliet smiled as she wrote "Home maker." Home wrecker and heart breaker would have been far more accurate.

FATHER/PARENT'S NAME: "Conán Kelly"

That one she remembered easily enough.

MOTHER/PARENT'S NAME BEFORE MARRIAGE: "Maureen FitzSimons"

Fortunately she could ask Bridget what her mother's name.

WHY DO YOU NEED THIS CERTIFICATE?

She had already read the form on the New York City government web site. She knew she needed a reason. She needed a very good reason to get it while she waited rather than having it mailed to her. While planning it at home finally it hit her. "To help me come to terms with my mother's suicide."

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO DECEASED?

"She was my mother." Dah.

NOTE: THE CONFIDENTIAL MEDICAL REPORT OF DEATH, INCLUDING THE CAUSE OF DEATH, CAN ONLY BE ISSUED FOR DEATHS OCCURRING ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2010.

DO YOU NEED THE CAUSE OF DEATH? YES NO

She circled the Yes. It would be more effective.

BY MY SIGNATURE BELOW, I STATE I AM THE PERSON WHOM I REPRESENT MYSELF TO BE HEREIN. I AFFIRM THE INFORMATION WITHIN THIS FORM IS COMPLETE AND ACCURATE INCLUDING THE NEED FOR AND THE ENTITLEMENT TO CAUSE OF DEATH INFORMATION. IN ADDITION, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MISSTATING MY IDENTITY OR ASSUMING THE IDENTITY OF ANOTHER PERSON INCLUDING FORGING A SIGNATURE MAY SUBJECT ME TO A MISDEMEANOR AND VIOLATORS MAY ALSO BE SUBJECT TO A FINE OF UP TO $2,000 PER VIOLATION.

Well, it was all kind of true. Dad had married her. So that kind of made her mother, in a Mad Martin sort of way.

She stood in the long, slow, meandering line. The web site said that the lines were shortest in the mornings. She'd have hated to see them in late afternoon. She nervously rehearsed what she would say over and over in her mind. She knew she had her identification and her credit card but would the words come out right.

Finally, finally she reached the head of the line and stood looking through the glass at a somewhat disheveled looking middle age woman with dust colored brown hair who was wearing a cheap and not altogether clean denim blouse. She nervously slid the completed form along with her credit card, her New York State ID card and her passport through the window. "Did I fill out the form right?"

The clerk looked at the form with a sideways glance, obviously matching the surname and address of Juliet's ID and the form. She seemed to be trying to look very important and powerful as she pondered the form in front of her. "Your death certificate will be mailed to this address, hopefully within four business weeks."

"I was really hoping to pick it up here today. It's very important to me."

"Normally we mail the forms unless there is a compelling reason not to."

"Please," Juliet begged in her best tone. "My psychiatrist said this would help me. I'm having a very hard time dealing with the reality of her death."

"This is against normal policy."

She began to pull her bottles of psych meds out of her purse. "Please. Her death has hit me really hard." She had been practicing it for days and days and even managed to begin to sob. "They had to put me in the hospital. I couldn't even make the funeral. They had to take me out of school. I need to heal and my psychiatrist says this is a very important step for me."

"You're making her cry," said a thuggish looking black man standing behind her. "Give the poor little crazy girl her mamma's death certificate."

"Have a heart," said a Chinese woman. "She lost her mother."

"Yeah," said others behind her, and someone tossed in "Do you want to make her relapse right here?"

The clerk ground her teeth. "I will speak to my supervisor."

Finally, the clerk returned with the completed form. Juliet looked at it, thanked everyone and quickly departed.

She found the nearest Fed Ex shop and addressed an international envelope.

Maudie and Eirwyn Martin  
60 Park Place  
Cardiff, Wales  
CF10 3AT

She wrote a quick letter in the shop, sealed it up along with the death certificate and everything else she wanted to send and gave it to the clerk behind the counter. Surprisingly, the next day FedEx International Priority shipment cost half as much as the FedEx International Economy shipment that took four days.

She had just enough time to take the Number 6 to the Union Square Barnes and Noble and pick up Shadow of Night at the Barnes and Noble on Warren Street. It was the second book in the All Souls Trilogy and was about Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and the handsome geneticist and a vampire named Matthew Clairmont. Juliet already had the first book in the series. She read on the subway how Diana and Matthew traveled back to Elizabethan London.

She was walking from the Hunter College station to home when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse, glanced at it and answered. "Hi, Mom."

"Where are you," Bridget said.

"By Park Avenue Armory almost across the street. She read the advertisement. "Ooh, they're doing 'The Murder of Crows' until the third. Can we go? It's supposed to be really post-modern trippy."

There was a rather uncomfortable pause on the phone. "You can ask if your father would like to go. Where did you go?"

"The Union Square Barnes and Noble. And I am all ready to pee in a cup for you." Both statements were true and she knew she'd be suffering for what she hadn't told them soon enough.

"Good. Andrew e-mailed me. He wants us to go out to dinner."

"Great. Where are we going?"

"Just the two of us."

"Ooh, romantic."

"He didn't use the word babysitter but …"

"Hey, I've had my daily exercise break in the prison. I can take going back to my cell, honest."


	80. The Letter

The Letter

Just before lunch as Maudie was busily hoovering the carpet, the doorbell rang. She wasn't sure that it had over the noise but when it rang again she stopped and answered the door. It was the delivery man with a large envelope. She signed for the package expecting it to be the crochet needles she'd bought on eBay but it was from Juliet.

She sat and opened the package and found a letter from Juliet and a sealed envelope marked "Read the letter first." She sat on the sofa and read the letter.

"August 21, 2012

Dear Grandmum and Grandfather,

I am an alcoholic. I have inherited it from the bio-mom formerly known as Catherine. I can't drink like normal people. I crave it constantly and when I do I don't stop until the bottle makes me drop and I know I must never have another drink again for the rest of my life. It almost killed me three months ago but I have been a clean and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous since. AA has a twelve step program and the eighth step of Alcoholics Anonymous is to come up with a list of those people you need to make amends to and the ninth step is to make those amends. As a part of my twelve step program to keep my sobriety I am writing this letter to you to try to make those amends.

I hid my drinking from everyone for years. I had hid it from myself too. I was just young and having fun and if you lived with Catherine you'd have to drink too. I had more reasons to drink than I had pairs of pants and like my pants I would always be wearing one or the other wherever I went.

Lying and having secrets kill an alcoholic. Absolute honesty is one of those things they teach you is essential to your survival. For the sake of my sobriety I have to ask your forgiveness for the wrongs I have done and especially for the lies I have told and the secrets we have kept from you. Please forgive me. It's been eating me up inside to tell you so many things that aren't true. I've always loved you two so very much. You've always been so nice to me even when I was at my worst. Lying to you has been like a cancer inside my soul and so I must tell you the truth and beg for your forgiveness.

My sins are varied and the list is so long. Let me start with what I remember in chronological order.

When I visited with Bio-Mom when I was about nine I stole a watch and a silver spoon. I'd give them back but I don't have those anymore. When I was about twelve and we visited again I drank your rye whiskey. When Dad and I visited when I was fourteen I drank some of everything from the liquor cabinet. I don't remember much of what it was.

I have been lying to you every time I talked to you for many months. There is nothing more embarrassing than lying and then lying more to cover the lie. Lying is trampling on one's conscious. It is prostitution of the soul.

I have been telling you that everything is fine with us. I have said that I am fine and Siobhan is fine and Catherine is just fine and that Siobhan and Dad are fine and Siobhan is having a baby. All of that is a lie. None of us are just fine. Bio-Mom is completely insane and behind bars for life for two murders and murder for hire. She tried to kill Siobhan. Dad ended up getting shot but he recovered. For a while in there I thought she was going to kill me too. My drinking killed someone. I didn't run him over with a car although I have already in my short drinking career driven drunk and totaled a car. I killed by matching a boy from school drink for drink until he died from alcohol poisoning. I'm not doing fine in school. I was pulled out of school by Dad and sent to New Zealand to Aunt Eirian's because Dad was afraid Siobhan was going to kill us. Siobhan isn't fine either. Well, maybe she is because she's dead. She's been dead and buried for months. You should open the envelope now."

Maudie put the letter down on the coffee table and opened the envelope. In it was a death certificate, an application for a death certificate and a hundred dollar bill. She looked at the death certificate. It couldn't be real but it definitely didn't feel like a fake. It had that solid feel of a ten pound note and the engraved printing was just as brilliantly sharp, fine detailed and clear and it had an extremely official feeling raised seal. She knew it wasn't something Juliet had printed at home.

She picked up the letter and read on.

"Siobhan killed herself in April. She was a lying, crazy bitch and the planet is well rid of her. I know that's not the polite thing to say but it very much is true. If you don't believe me that she is dead, fill out the form and send it in. It might take a month but you will get her death certificate back. If you do believe me, the money is to make amends for everything I took.

So who is that pregnant lady that is living in our apartment and that we're calling Siobhan when you're on the phone? Her name is Bridget Kelly. She's Siobhan's sister. She really is pregnant with Dad's son. The whole thing is kind of mixed up. Some mobster was trying to kill Bridget and Bio-Mom hired a hit-man to kill Siobhan and since Siobhan wanted to kill Bridget and not be killed herself she tricked Bridget into taking her place with Dad so she'd get killed and ran off with some douche bag named Henry that in the end stole all the money from Siobhan that she had stolen from Dad so she later murdered him but meanwhile Bio-Mom's hit-man ended up shooting Dad instead and Bridget was much nicer being Siobhan than Siobhan ever was and she and Dad fell in love while Dad was sleeping with a woman who wasn't his wife but didn't know it. When Dad and I found out of course we were uber pissed and Dad kicked her out but we soon realized how real that love we'd known from her was. Siobhan found her and tried to kill her but Bridget won the fight and Siobhan killed herself when she was about to be arrested.

If I saw it as the plot on a TV show I'd change the channel and never watch the show again but it actually happened. I think Dad is just SO embarrassed about the whole thing. He didn't just fail miserably with wife #1 but he did with wife #2 too. He doesn't think he can explain it to you and he is so frightened of getting married but he feels he has to since he knocked Bridget up. Please forgive Dad. He means well and Bridget says she can feel his love but there are so many things he just doesn't understand at all about life. I shouldn't make it sound like I am casting blame for what I did on him. I have to take responsibility for my actions and I chose to go along with it and lie to you and I accept that. It's just that he can be so emotionally stunted at times. I don't think he knows better and I have to accept that and love him as he is too.

You'll like Bridget. You really will. She is even nicer than she sounds on the phone and she is the only true mother I have ever had. She's warm and she's genuine I credit her with my sobriety. Give her a chance and don't blame her for anything before September because it wasn't her.

Please keep quiet about everything for now. I'll call you as soon as I can. I'm still under kind of house arrest after the last big drunk so it may be a while until I get the chance. Dad wants to marry Bridget before the baby comes and I think they are going to do it in the next few weeks and it would kill me to let you two miss it. I'll tell you when and where so you can surprise them. I know you will want to be there.

With all the love you can imagine and more,

Juliet"

Maudie sat and read the letter over and over again. She should be shocked. She should find it beyond belief. Yet somehow she didn't.


	81. The Contract

**The Contract**

"She's just been like that," Bridget said.

It was one of those steamy New York late summer days but the loudly humming air conditioners kept the Martin apartment cool. She and Andrew were lying on the couch and he was gently massaging her aching feet as he idly listened on WINS radio 1010 to the report of an ex-Marine who worked at a supermarket over the line in New Jersey gunning down two of his fellow employees with an AK-47 and then killing himself. How utterly American of him he thought as his idle brain cells began to focus on moving up her calf and then up her thigh and massaging elsewhere.

They were in a relaxed and silly mood. If they didn't have an appointment soon they'd have gone in the bedroom, ripped off their clothes and begun slamming like little minks. But instead they chatted about Juliet. "She's a teen-ager. Something is always wrong. Why is this different?"

Bridget shrugged her shoulders. "It just seemed to hit. She was so looking forward to getting back to school but for the last week she's felt stressed and distant."

"Is she using?"

"She blows squeaky clean and passed a drug test. No it is inside her. She has gone … dark."

He reached up her dress, put his face to the watermelon and blew, making a farting noise, feeling his son move in reply. "She blows squeaky clean. Can it be that bad?"

She shook her head. "She is fighting something and she is in her head. Those are very dangerous places for any addict to be at."

"Could it be a mistake to have let her go out to Hunter College Hillel by herself?"

She scowled in deep thought. "I know something is wrong with her but we can't keep her in a jail cell. She will go insane and rebel. Besides, she needs to be among some other people around her own age."

"Don't forget I met Catherine at the Columbia University Hillel. Not everyone is nice there."

"I always wondered what you were doing at the Jewish Students Union?"

Andrew shrugged. "The rest of the graduate economics and business group met at Café Nana on the second floor for lunch and then would study at the lounge or the Library. I kind of followed them. Unfortunately Catherine hung out there too. Do you think Juliet could be getting in trouble there?"

"I hope not but I've been getting some creepy phone calls."

"Who is calling her?"

"Not her, me. Three or four times someone has called and asked for Bridget Kelly and then just hung up." Her nose wrinkled. "There was something I wanted to tell you about them, something important. Now I can't remember what it was."

"What number is it?"

Bridget shrugged. "Nonsense phone numbers like when your mother calls."

"Huh. Sure that isn't some pissed off sponsee from your NA group?"

"That reminds me. I've got a new one. Bishop Fitzgerald called."

"How bad?"

"Actually pretty hopeful. Married mother of two. She had been doctor shopping to get prescription anti-anxiety drugs but she's got three weeks clean."

"Oh good." Andrew tried to put a good face on it but he still found the whole subject of drugs and alcoholism to be more revolting than the thought of Owain's soiled nappies. Nappies were something Owain would grow out of. But this? As much as he had read and as much as Bridget had explained to him and as much as he had been through with both Catherine and Juliet he still felt like it was completely alien. "Still, could it be her?"

"Definitely not. This is to the house phone. I only give anyone from my group the number of one of those disposable phones. I keep both phones in my purse. A bit of a pain but I thought you'd prefer it that way."

"Right you are. Did you know mobiles with two sim cards – two phone numbers – are common in Europe?"

"No."

"Maybe I'll get you one for your birthday."

Bridget smiled. "I would like that. It would make things much simpler."

"I should get one with a good HDTV camera in it for Owain."

"Now that is a stroke of sheer genius."

"So when will she be home?"

"She knows the appointment is at 11:00. She promised she'd be back by 10:00."

The radio told about the attorney generals of 49 states and five territories having joined an anti-trust settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. He wasn't even sure why they bothered to mention it. The whole suit was for just $69 million. He was more interested in Costco having reported comp-sales gain of 6%, as higher fuel prices offset a stronger dollar. It was more signs of exactly what he expected, and it being the business report told Andrew exactly what time it was. "It's four minutes to ten."

Before the radio moved to the traffic report, the phone rang. It was Juliet. "Mom, I am walking home now. I'm running a few minutes late. Where are you?"

"On the couch."

"Why don't you two go downstairs? I'll be there by the time you have a cab."

They got one of the nice, big cabs. Andrew had hardly given the driver the destination when Juliet climbed in too. Bridget looked at her. There seemed to be small tear streaks on her face. "Juliet, are you alright? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Juliet said through clenched teeth. "I'm fine."

Andrew watched Bridget's eyes. She gave a tiny sidewise glance that told him that she also felt Juliet's condition was very much to the contrary. Even though Juliet was obviously tense he smiled. He could tell what Bridget was thinking so much easier than he ever could with Siobhan or Catherine after less than a year together. "I know you better than that."

"Juliet, if you won't be honest with us then at least be honest with yourself. What do you really feel?"

"Rejected. He turned me down."

"Who? For what?"

"Rabbi Potek. I have never felt more low. He said that he wouldn't marry you. It didn't matter what I felt about you. You're not Jewish."

"I'm sorry, " Andrew said. "But I know how that feels."

"You can't possibly know how humiliating that felt."

"Actually I do. I was turned down by Father Kompaniychenko at Saint Basil's Orthodox Church two days ago."

"How could he turn you down? You're both Christian."

"He said that marriage is a sacrament and that since neither of us is Orthodox right now he wouldn't do it." He bit his lip. "I was stunned. I was planning on converting before that but now, I honestly don't know. I keep thinking that the Christ my mother taught me about wouldn't turn away two people who wanted to get married."

At the next red light, the cabbie turned to them and seemed to search their souls. He was roughly Andrew's age but had a round, Asian face that was worn but seemed to be full of inner tranquility. "Do you love her," he asked with a thick Chinese accent.

Andrew wasn't surprised. New York cabbies were famous for suddenly playing psychiatrist during the middle of the most personal of conversations. "Yes, I do."

"More than your own life?"

Andrew smiled and nodded.

"He took a bullet for me," Bridget added.

"Do you love him?"

"With all my heart."

"She does. She even went off alone with a psycho who was pointing a gun at her to save our lives," Juliet said.

"I thought driving cab dangerous job. What you guys, gangsters?"

"I'm an investment broker. This was my first wife," Andrew said smiling. "She was insanely jealous and tried to kill us. Now she's doing life in an insane asylum."

"This crazy your mother," the cabbie asked Juliet.

"Not after this morning she won't be. That's why we're going to the judge."

"But you don't want judge to marry you?"

Andrew shook his head. "I did the judge with number one. I want a prayer and a blessing from someone who has the authority and just wants to serve God by uniting a man and a woman for life. But unfortunately New York City doesn't seem to have any left."

"I do it," the cabbie said with a smile.

"Unfortunately you're just a cab driver."

"I Mormon Bishop. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." They reached their destination and parked. He pulled out what looked a church bulletin in Chinese from a binder, circled a phone number printed on it and handed it to Bridget. "You call here schedule interview. He Executive Secretary."

As Andrew paid, Bridget carefully put the paper in her purse with a smile.

Their destination had been 521 Fifth Avenue. It was one of those Grand roaring 20's skyscrapers with stone lions and a fine white marble lobby. Even the elevators were white marble.

Their destination was at the most exclusive end of the building near the penthouse. There, Bridget sat beside Andrew and Juliet in the cherry wood conference table overlooking Manhattan prestigious looking offices of the law firm of Berkman, Bottger, Newman & Rodd. Seated around the table was Edwin Newmann, Andrew's lawyer, a law clerk with a notary set before her who was triple checking three piles of paperwork and her lawyer. His name was Manuel Gomez and had recently graduated from law school. Bishop Fitzgerald had recommended him. The muscles beneath his simple Arrow shirt and regimental pattern tie contrasted markedly with Andrew's lawyer's limp wristed handshake and far too delicate face in a very expensive and immaculately tailored control freak charcoal pinstripe suit. His lawyer oddly made her nervous so she began reading the smallest of the piles of forms in front of her. They were for changing her name. She didn't want to be executing the form but it was part of the deal. It seemed insulting and more than a little strange, but it was what she had traded to get Juliet.

**Civil Court of the City of New York **

**County of New York** Index Number_

In the Matter of the Application of **PETITION FOR**

** INDIVIDUAL ADULT**

** CHANGE OF NAME**

**BRIDGET KELLY, **

a/k/a **SIOBHAN MARTIN**

For Leave to Change Her Name To

**BRIDGET SIOBHAN KELLY, **

Bridget Kelly, by this petition alleges:

1. My **present name** is Bridget Kelly.

2. I would like my **new name** to be Bridget Siobhan Kelly, in place of my present name.

3. I am 31 years old. I was born on September 29, 1979.

4. I was born in Bronx, New York, USA.

5. I currently live at 626 Park Ave #1600 New York, New York 10023.

6. I have been convicted of a crime. The details are as follows: Drunk driving in Utah five years ago, legally discharged. No time served (48 hrs community service). Reckless driving in Nevada seven years ago, also legally discharged. No time served.

7. I have never declared bankruptcy.

8. There are no judgments or liens against me.

9. I am not a party to any actions or proceedings.

10. I do not have any obligations to pay child support.

11. I do not owe any child support.

12. I am not responsible for spousal support.

13. I have not made a previous application to change my name in this or any other court.

14. I want to change my name for the following reason(s):

To honor my grandmother. I am taking my grandmother's name as my middle name.

WHEREFORE, your Petitioner respectfully requests that an Order be granted permitting this change of name.

Date

Bridget Kelly

.

**VERIFICATION**

State of New York, County of _ ss.:

Bridget Kelly, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

she is the petitioner named above, that petitioner has read the petition and knows the truth of the contents thereof except for those matters alleged to be on information and belief, and as to those matters, petitioner believes them to be true.

Bridget Kelly

Sworn to before me this _ day of _, 20_

Signature of Notary Public

She read it again, and looked at the woman faced man in a power suit that was Andrew's lawyer. He offered her a pen and Bridget took it. "A deal is a deal," she said grimly as she signed it.

"Mom, can I talk to you for a second," Juliet said nervously sweeping up the papers and retreating into a corner of the conference room.

"Now," Bridget asked.

"It's kind of important."

Andrew sat calmly and watched Juliet whisper something into Bridget's ear. He expected that it was just one of those woman things until he saw Bridget's jaw drop and she said "You did what?" She turned to Andrew and said "I think we're going to have a family discussion."

"Excuse us for a moment," Andrew said, and followed them out of the conference room.

"You tell him," Bridget said as they walked into a vacant office and she closed the door behind them.

"Can't you?"

The daggers that came from Bridget's eyes said that she wouldn't.

"I kind of had to tell your parents," Juliet said meekly.

"Told them what?"

"I made my eighth and ninth step to them. I really needed to."

Andrew tried to remember what step was what. He should have paid more attention. "OK, and … "

"I made amends to them for stealing from them and lying to them."

He thought for a minute and then it hit him. "You didn't."

"I really needed to. I felt so bad about lying to Grandmum and lying more to cover my lies. So I sent a letter … with Siobhan's death certificate. And then I felt bad about not telling you, but it wasn't a lie but it wasn't the truth and … it's just a mess. I don't know what to do."

Andrew's face turned red with embarrassment and rage.

"Let's wait until after we get home for the fight and the punishment," Bridget said.

"Oh there will be one, believe me."

"That's entirely up to you. Right now, I'm still willing to go through with the name change," Bridget sighed. "I don't want to do it. But I will keep my end of the deal to make Juliet my daughter. Do I still need to? There's nobody left to hide me from."

He turned to Juliet. "Did she put you up to this?"

"She had no idea. I didn't tell her."

"Hold," he said, not seeing a reason. "I reserve the right to change my mind later."

Bridget nodded. "Fair enough."

They walked back in. "We are temporarily holding off on the name change," Andrew said as calmly as he could as he sat back down. The rest will be executed."

They sat down and signed forms. The biggest pile was for the adoption. Everyone was busy signing and signing. "This can't be submitted until you are legally married," the lawyer said.

"We will be seeing to that directly," Bridget said.

"You going with the taxi driver," Juliet asked.

Bridget shrugged. "Why not?"

"It does seem to fit," Andrew added.

"I want Grandmum and Grandfather there," Juliet said firmly. "They deserve it."

Andrew couldn't argue. "I will call them."

THIS AGREEMENT MADE IN TRIPLICATE THIS 30th Day of August, 2012  
**  
BETWEEN: **

**ANDREAS LLYWELYN MARTIN**

of the City of New York  
in the State of New York

**- AND -**

**BRIDGET KELLY**

of the City of New York  
in the State of New York

**PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT**

BACKGROUND

This Prenuptial Agreement is made between **ANDREAS LLYWELYN MARTIN** (hereinafter called "Andrew") and **BRIDGET KELLY** (hereinafter called "Bridget") who are contemplating marriage each to the other;

The parties intend for this Agreement to become effective upon their marriage pursuant to the laws of the State of New York, including any Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, or other applicable laws, adopted by the State of New York;

The parties wish to enter into this agreement to provide for the status, ownership, and division of property between them, including future property owned or to be acquired by either or both of them;

The parties further wish to affix their respective rights and liabilities that may result from this relationship;

The parties recognize the possibility of unhappy differences that may arise between them. Accordingly, the parties desire that the distribution of any property that either or both of them may own will be governed by the terms of this Agreement and, insofar as the statutory or case law permits, intend that any statutes that may apply to them, either by virtue of Federal or State legislation, will not apply to them;

Each party has had the opportunity to retain their own lawyer and receive independent legal advice regarding the terms of this Agreement;

The parties have disclosed to their satisfaction all assets and liabilities that each may have and voluntarily and expressly waive any other rights to disclosure of the property or financial obligations of each other beyond the disclosure provided;

The parties acknowledge that they have been provided with a reasonable period of time to review this Agreement and obtain legal advice before signing;

Each party agrees and affirms the following:

THAT the parties did execute the Agreement voluntarily;

THAT this Agreement was not unconscionable when it was executed;

THAT both parties were provided prior to execution of the Agreement a fair and reasonable disclosure of the property or financial obligations of the other party; and

THAT he or she did have, or reasonably could have had, an adequate knowledge of the property or financial obligations of the other party.

**NOW THEREFORE** in consideration of the upcoming marriage, and in consideration of the mutual promises and covenants contained in this Agreement, the parties agree as follows:

Bridget's brain glazed over as too many convoluted words pummeled her brain. Rather than bothering to read the pages and pages of Andrew's financial disclosures, she pulled her draft copy out of her purse and made sure the sections she cared about read the same. In the event of a normal divorce, her equitable distribution would be capped at a maximum of 1/3 of the gain in assets after the marriage. If either are divorced for substance addiction, their money will be held in trust and only distributed for treatment and basic maintenance after. If she is caught in infidelity, she gets a maximum of 10%. If he is caught in infidelity, he gets a maximum of 1/3.

On the surface it was insulting and not at all fair, but she didn't plan on using or cheating on him or getting divorced and she got all the things she really wanted. It was a wonder that Andrew would consider marriage to any woman after the way she and Siobhan and Catherine and Olivia and Juliet had utterly shattered his trust. He now clung to his money like an abused and ignored child would to a security blanket. Besides if Andrew did divorce her she would still have more than enough to take care of herself and their child and that was all she needed.

"I've got a 12:00 here for some other business," Andrew said after all the signings, looking at Juliet with his utterly controlled rage. "You two go on home."

"I saw an Urban Outfitters," Juliet said. "We can do some back to school shopping."

"No. We have a fight to have."

The two of them quietly walked out. Juliet remained quiet on the way home, tail between her legs.

"He shouldn't be mad at me like this," Juliet finally said as she and Bridget got off the elevator at home. "He had no right to force me into a corner."

"He has every right to be mad. You made him lose face with his parents."

"Doesn't he care that I need to do my eighth and ninth steps?"

"This whole thing was about Andrew's head trip with his relationship with his mother. Like any good alcoholic, you made it all about you. You made a decision based on yourself and you tried to control things."

"But he couldn't do this to me if he really loved me."

"Juliet, love is putting aside one's own selfish needs. You can do things that are great sacrifices in the name of love but if you are doing them to get something out of it then you aren't really loving at all. You need to be in God's unselfish love." She hung her purse from the baby swing and kicked her shoes off. "You also missed something very important."

"I missed something?"

"Yes. You missed a lot of the message of the eighth and ninth steps." She picked up the large print book from her desk and sat down on the couch, flipping through the book to what she was looking for. "Chapter six, page 74. 'We have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense. Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on ourself, but always considerate of others.' It's right in the twelve steps and you hear this one at every meeting. '9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.'"

Juliet pulled the rocking chair over and sat down. "But Daddy hurt me by making me lie."

"That's a great reason to go to your Rabbi or your sponsor to do a 10th step personal inventory. It's even a great reason to go to your father and explain how what he is doing is affecting you. But it isn't a reason to hurt him like this."

"But that's stupid. He hurt me first and there was no other way out."

"What he did has nothing to do with it." Again she opened the book and flipped around until she found what she wanted to read. 'Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own.'" She put the book down. "Your father will want to know exactly what you wrote. Is it still on your computer?"

Juliet winced. "I composed it on my phone."

"Go print it. Your father deserves it."

Juliet slowly went to her computer and as it came out of the printer Bridget read it. "Thank you for the nice words about me but you criticized your father."

"Do we have to show him that part?"

"Do you want to live a lie? Do you always want to be looking over your shoulder, wondering if he's going to find out?"

Juliet shook her head as she sat, exhausted. "This sucks."

"It's not easy but it will bring you peace and freedom."

"But it's not fair. I only did this after he did something worse to me."

"That doesn't even enter into it."

"How can you say that?"

"I've been through worse and still had to make amends." She looked back into painful memories. "I was raped. There was a party and Shane Keegan said he wanted sex but I said no. He was the quarterback of the football team but I didn't want it. He " ... "It was not pretty. He hit me and raped me. Of course all the guys on the football team said it was consensual and by now even my own father said I got what I deserved for drinking like that with a bunch of jocks so the police wouldn't do anything."

"What did you do?"

"I chiseled 'Rapist' on his fancy electric blue Mustang car. Both doors and with a glass cutter in the windshield."

Juliet raised an eyebrow. "That's a very reasonable response."

"But it didn't do any good and didn't even hurt him. When I called him to try to make amends he told me that his insurance paid for it. Then he called me the C word and some other vile things and hung up."

"But that means he's still an animal."

"His willingness to accept the amends is not the point. I tried. I became willing to make amends and I became free. For years I wondered what he would do to me. I was imprisoned by my anger and my fear of what he would do to me. When he slammed that phone down, I was free."

"But what else could you have done to his evil?"

"I should have believed that when the other girls said that he was a date raper that he would do it to me too. I should have believed that I wasn't special and that he'd play me the same as he played the others and been sensible and stayed home."

"What else could you do after what he really did to you?"

"What he did was a crime but what I did was a crime too and I had to try to make amends for it."

"But he did his crime first and his was bigger."

"By the law, yes. But that makes no difference. I needed to get over my resentment and those resentments will kill us. Resentments are the number one reason we drink and when an alcoholic like us drinks it kills us. We don't die all at once but our lives and our bodies and our souls get deader and deader."

"But it's still not human to have to make amends after you've had someone do something like rape you."

"You have expectations of what the world should be like?"

"Of course I do."

"Expectations are just premeditated resentments. If you go around with preconceived notions and a list of demands in your head of how people should treat you then you will always be disappointed."

"But what else can I do?"

Bridget went into a lotus yoga position on the couch. "Ah Donatello, God in, fear out – breathe."

"But Master Splinter, when evil comes I try to control myself but …"

"Then you are forgetting the deal you made with God in the third step prayer. I pray it every morning and you should too. 'God, I offer myself to Thee- To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!' Every day I renew that deal with God for Him to take away the prison that is inside my own head and I promise to do his will and be a living testimony of His power. Now ask yourself what God's will is for you right now with your father?"


	82. Thank You

**Thank you**

Ronnie the Doorman said "Hello, Mr. Martin" as he walked into the lobby of 626 Park Avenue with a file folder of legal papers in his hand. He waved back and smiled but he didn't feel like smiling. He had so wanted this day to go well. He had so wanted everything to be perfect.

As he took the lift up to the apartment, he told himself that he would remain calm and would see what the scene was like before reacting.

When he walked in, Juliet was sitting in the rocking chair Bridget had gotten, reading something. She stood up and walked over to him and handed it to him. "Dad, I am sorry. I was wrong. I … I guess I should have gone to you first. I will accept your punishment."

He sat down on the couch, shocked. He'd almost been looking forward to a long fight where he could release all his tension from his weeks of petty frustrations over the marriage by huffing, puffing and bellowing into her how wrong she had been but now he just couldn't.

"That's the letter I sent them," Juliet continued. "I haven't sent anything else and I never did get a chance to make the phone call I wrote about in there."

"This is a very mature attitude," he said as he sat back and read the letter. It was kind of accurate, at least from her perspective about the factual events. Catherine was in prison, Juliet was an alcoholic and Siobhan was mercifully dead. But one paragraph stuck in his throat.

"If I saw it as the plot on a TV show I'd change the channel and never watch the show again but it actually happened. I think Dad is just SO embarrassed about the whole thing. He didn't just fail miserably with wife #1 but he did with wife #2 too. He doesn't think he can explain it to you and he is so frightened of getting married but he feels he has to since he knocked Bridget up. Please forgive Dad. He means well and Bridget says she can feel his love but there are so many things he just doesn't understand at all about life. I shouldn't make it sound like I am casting blame for what I did on him. I have to take responsibility for my actions and I chose to go along with it and lie to you and I accept that. It's just that he can be so emotionally stunted at times. I don't think he knows better and I have to accept that and love him as he is too."

He read that second half over and over again. "I am not emotionally stunted," he said finally.

Juliet just silently rolled her eyes.

"Except for my mother, in the last few months I learned how every woman in my life screwed me over one way or the other. Some more than one."

"That's just not true."

He held up his hand and started ticking them off on his fingers. "Catherine, shot me and stole from me. You, stole from me and came within a whisker of drinking yourself to death on me. Siobhan cheated on me, stole from me and ran away. Olivia was munching my ex-wife's rug – the thought of that still enrages me and creeps me out. Bridget was not Siobhan." He switched hands because he ran out of fingers on the first one. "Even Claudine my receptionist has been feeding Tim Arbogast personal information about me."

"OK, so maybe it is kind of true. But that was then and this is now."

"And you are the one who is emotionally stunted if you think that after that many insults to my psyche that I can just turn all that fear off and merrily go on my way like none of it ever happened."

"You're just living in resentments then."

"You're damn right I am! You end up ripped off for eleven million dollars and with a bullet hole in the chest by the hand of your wife and ex-wife and tell me you don't have any lasting resentments."

Bridget had been lying down with the door open, listening intently as she rested. But after an excellent start sadly things seemed to be deteriorating so she had to intervene before permanent damage was done. She found the right passage in the Big Book in her room and carried it out to the living room and handed it to Juliet. "Please re-read this."

Juliet did, then started to slowly close the book.

"Out loud."

She looked up at Bridget with more than a little anger. She felt trapped and there was no way out except to eat humble pie. "Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. If our manner is calm, frank, and open, we will be gratified with the result."

"Let's talk more a little later," Andrew said, getting up, picking up his iPad and the file folder. "Why don't you do some more reading? There is something I want to show your mum." He used the word 'mum' entirely deliberately. It emphasized their collective control and unity in the struggle with her. He inwardly had a bit of a smile. It was reasonable enough. After all Juliet had signed the adoption papers and she was the one who had chosen to call her 'mother.'

"What," Juliet asked, starting to get up.

"That which we might choose to discuss later. I'd really like you to stay here. We won't be long."

Bridget put on her shoes and grabbed her purse and they went into the elevator. Once they reached the lobby, Andrew pushed the up button of one of the ordinary building elevators, not the private ones to the exclusive upper floor suites. When it came he led her in and pushed the button for the fourteenth floor.

"Where are we going," she asked.

"Do you remember the blighter who always had the loud parties?"

She nodded. "The walls shook."

When the elevator opened he walked to the door of 14B and unlocked it. Bridget followed him in and looked around. The apartment was both bare and full of junk and trash. A metal desk that looked both old and extraordinarily heavy sat in a corner in the living room, piled with empty bottles of cheap wine. Beer bottle caps pressed into the wall to form a giant "420" were the only decoration. A huge dead plant sat in the corner, next to a hideously soiled couch. The kitchen cabinets and drawers were open and strewn with half empty candy bags. She didn't dare open the fridge. The smell was clear even without opening the door. The beds had been removed but the remains of other furniture that looked like it had once been quite nice were met by an odd assortment of items that hadn't made it into the trash but should have. The single bath was a rather scary site and included a toilet that had become black. She had no idea how that could have happened. "He moved out? It's for sale?"

"It was for sale. I bought it."

"Why?"

"He was some actor who was all ballsed-up on skag so of course he didn't make payments and was being foreclosed on this evening. I offered enough so that he could walk away clean without a bad credit report and a few bags more so he can go jack up and hang himself. I'm sure with a little reconditioning I could turn a quite decent profit but I have other plans."

"Oh?"

He took her to a walk in closet off the living room and pointed to the back wall and then pulled a diagram of the entire 14th floor out of the file folder. "The other side of this wall is to the right of our elevator. I'm going to secure that front door and then open up the access from our side. You will need a nanny. This way we will have space for a live in."

"I'm grateful for it but you don't have to. Other women manage."

"No, I do need to. You've taken Juliet a long way. You'll need the strength and time to keep on doing that after Owain comes."

Bridget understood all too well how much further Juliet had to go. "I think she did the letter partially because she felt safe to do it."

"She hit me because she could?"

"She has a seething ocean of resentments. Hers against you and me are in the safer shallows. She knows deep inside that we won't ever hurt her. But what she really needs to do is face the deepest, darkest wrongs."

"Catherine," he snapped.

She nodded. "The biggest terror inside her private world."

"I don't want her near Catherine."

"I'm not doing anything. Juliet must feel the need and develop the courage herself. I pray it will happen."

"Catherine tried to kill you, had a gun on all of us including Juliet and I ended up shot."

"Absolutely true. But remember if Juliet chooses to contact her that Catherine is in a mental institution, heavily medicated and under the security for dangerous prisoners. There would be guards. But that isn't the point. I'm asking you not to be too hard on Juliet for this. Let her know it is safe to make an amends."

Andrew stood silently and pondered Bridget's words. He would decide later if she could be right. "Look beyond the trash. What do you think of the place?"

She tried to picture the apartment cleaned up and in good repair. The master bedroom was quite generous although the second bedroom was tiny, barely big enough for a child's room. It would be good for storage or a small office. Even after turning the walk in closet off the living room into an entry way it still had oodles of closet space. It also had a quite pleasant balcony off the living room. The kitchen would have to be totally redone to make it presentable. The cabinets were cheap particle board and were hideously grease stained and the walls were covered with rather antique looking harvest gold wallpaper. Still it was a decent sized kitchen with a dishwasher and a large closet had the space and the correct plumbing for a washer and gas dryer set. "It definitely has potential. A few years down the road we might move Juliet in here. Kind of moving out without going too far."

"I'd thought of that. Perhaps another unit will open up by then too. I've told the management to alert me."

"How much was it?"

"A hundred and fifty thousand dollars." He walked out to the patio. "That's less than a quarter of market price if it were fixed up."

Bridget trotted along, following him out the door. "It's going to take hard work to get it habitable."

"That is a given. I'll leave you in charge of finding the cleaners and the workers. I can arrange cash payment. I don't want you doing ANY of the work yourself." He sat on the bare floor. "Did you call the cab driver?"

Bridget carefully sat by him, assuming her Yoga lotus position. The bare concrete of the balcony was definitely the cleanest place in the whole apartment. "A Chinese woman with a really thick accent answered. I think she said to call back at dinner time. I'm not sure."

He nodded. "I'll call Mei-Mei if we need a translator." He pulled out Juliet's letter. "Did you read it?"

She nodded.

"It's time to call my mother." He sighed. "I am not looking forward to this."

"Why not? I've always enjoyed talking to her." She shrugged. "I don't intend to follow most of her advice but that's how it is in any family."

"This is going to be painful."

"Why? Because what Juliet wrote was the truth? You are embarrassed."

He nodded. "Yes. But not just of you and Siobhan. I think I am embarrassed by me." He pulled out the letter. "Juliet's words were quite good. She really has a talent. 'There is nothing more embarrassing than lying and then lying more to cover the lie. Lying is trampling on one's conscious. It is prostitution of the soul.'"

She kissed him on the forehead. "But now you know it and are going to make it right. Your mother and father will still love you. Oh they'll have some awkward questions but our whole year together has been rather twisted."

He laughed as he dialed from his mobile. "It has indeed."

Maudie was seated in her favorite armchair watching Celebrity Masterchef on the box. The tension was even greater tonight because the celebrities were cooking not just for Gregg and John but for three special guest judges who had all been participants including last year's Celebrity Masterchef winner.

Rebecca Romero's pear, walnut and Roquefort cheese salad starter was simple but adequate. Her bobotie, spicy rice and apricot chutney was well received, even by Gregg who said he'd had it before and really hated it. Michael Underwood from The Zone's sea bass was well received and his chocolate fondant was marvelously crispy, light and runny. She really didn't see how Dairmuid Gavin was going to be able to top that with a heavy, greasy dish like pan fried liver and bacon with fried onions in a wine sauce and he wasn't even getting his toffee pudding started on time. She just knew he would be the one to go. How would the judges receive it?

And then the phone rang. It would be something stupid she knew, but if she didn't answer it then it would ring through the whole show. "Hello," she said, picking it up.

"Helo, Mam. Sut wyt ti?," came from across the Atlantic. "Hello, Mother. How are you?"

"We're fine. How about you and Siobhan" she answered in Welsh.

Bridget had tried to learn Welsh. She thought her knowledge of Irish Gaelic would make it easy to pick the language up, but the languages were too different. She thought she could pick out a few words here and there but not enough to know what he was saying. She thought he said that Siobhan is dead and was quite sure he said Siobhan and Bridget several times. But he could have been telling her something completely different than what she was hoping for.

She held his hand and silently prayed for him to speak the truth. She wouldn't do more to force him. He would have to decide.

After what seemed like an eternity, he switched to his iPad. "Hello, Maudie," she said, looking at the old woman with the gamer headset on.

"Andrew says you are Siobhan's sister."

She breathed a sigh of relief and snuggled up close to him. "Yes. My name is Bridget."

"I should be shocked by all this, but I am not. You looked so much like Siobhan but seemed so different when we spoke."

"Siobhan had her difficulties and issues. I have more than my share too. None of us are perfect but Siobhan let herself sink into hers until they killed her."

"That phone call in June. I knew there was something different about you."

Bridget laughed. "Thank you."


End file.
